


West - The Past Comes Calling

by shaenie



Series: West [6]
Category: LoTR RPS - AU
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:13:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaenie/pseuds/shaenie





	1. Change of Management: Cate, Lando, Yuma, 1879

The man with the pale blue eyes, like they had been bleached out by the sun, flashes a look at the Mexican next to him that seems to say 'Isn't the French dandy a lucky bastard?'

The Mexican doesn't reply.

The third stranger merely smiles with too many teeth.

“Cate, mon coeur, these gentlemen are here to help you,” Lando says, – decked out in full Julien La Fleur finery, voice smooth as brandy and an easy smile to match – leaning against the window frame, odd shadows cast across his face by the frame and curtains.

“Oh?” Neither enthusiastic nor accusatory, merely delivered with an arched brow.

Lando gives her a long look before continuing, “Oui. They'll provide additional security for the tournament.”

“Will they?”

She suspects that, if they were not in company, if he were not bound by the rules that playing Julien La Fleur requires, his jaw would be clenched. “Yes, I've obtained their services for the length of the tournament. But where are my manners? Cate, I'd like you to meet Joe Miller,” an elegant hand pointed at the pale eyed man, “Tomas Vasquez and George Thexton. Gentlemen, the lady of the house.”

The men all nod at her, Vasquez politely saying, “Senora.”

She can smile with too many teeth as well, and does, before saying, “It's my pleasure, gentlemen. Now, I do hate to rush you out, but feel free to have a drink at the bar. On me. Mister La Fleur and I have a few things to discuss.”

The men rise, opening the doors of the parlor into the main saloon, allowing in the sounds of many conversations blended into a single hum, a girl's laughter cracking through it like a whip, Dom playing a bright, happy tune beneath it all. She sees Vasquez give Miller a look that plainly says, 'The dandy is anything but lucky if he's got himself into trouble with this one.'

As the doors close behind them, cutting off the noise, she thinks she may like Vasquez best of the lot.

Lando doesn't immediately say anything once the door closes. Cate's face has shut down, that look she gets when she's seriously displeased and determined to make his life hell. He looks at her for long moments, and she quite deliberately doesn't look back.

He's only been in town for just over an hour, and already he's going to be sleeping on the setee tonight. Damn.

"Cate," he says cautiously, and watches her twitch a little, like a rattlesnake right before it stikes. Double damn.

They don't fight often. Sometimes he thinks thats the only good thing about not being her lover. They avoid the inevitable spats that accompany that sort of closeness.

But they're close in nearly every other way, so they _do_ fight sometimes, and often enough that Orlando is familiar with Cate's tells.

She's about to go up like dynamite in a brush fire, and nothing he can say now will stop that.

In light of that, he goes on the offensive. "It's only temporary. You can't afford a repeat of last year, Cate."

“There won’t be a repeat of last year, Julien,” she says, knowing that Lando knows that her using Julien has nothing to do with the possibility of listeners and everything to do with just how angry she is with him. “Last year was just bad luck, no one could have known that Arquette would take it in his head to go after Pitt.”

“And no one can know what enemies may end up sharing a table this year. No, listen to me,” he says when she would interrupt, “Poker makes men ugly. So does money. We’re going to have nothing but poker in this town for the next week, all for a great deal of money for the winner and nothing for everyone else. It’s a nasty situation. Lawrence is very good, he’s good enough that I trust him to take care of problems that need his sort of blo- person normally, but this isn’t normal. No tournament that I know of has only one enforcer and, really, even four is not that many compared to most. I know what I’m talking about, trust me. This is what I do.”

Poker is not all he does and she wants to scream that at him, but people would be able to hear her and as angry as she is with him, she will not betray him outright. But she was taught that pennies saved were pennies earned, while he is a true gambler, believing the only way to become rich is to bet big. And this time it’s her pennies that he’s betting with.

Her nails are digging into her palms as he stares at her. Annoying bastard. Arrogant bastard of a man, assuming he gets – “Since when do you get to decide how my tournament is run?”

Well. That's what he gets for trying to help, he guesses. He doesn't growl at her -- though he's tempted -- and he doesn't yell. It'd be like pouring water on a grease fire.

He speaks quietly, his eyes narrowed and fixed on her face, watching her carefully. "What the hell is this about, Cate? Control? Or money."

It isn't until after it's already said, sitting there flatly in the room between them, that he regrets it. One skill he wishes to God he'd never picked up from Bill; the ability to hit where it hurts most. He can't take back the contepmt in his tone now. It's too late for that.

The air sucked between her teeth is cool and smells slightly of musk and spilled liquor, some part of her brain thinks that she’ll have to make sure that the parlor is aired out tomorrow before the gamblers start rolling in to town.

The rest of her remembers that the dealer calls the game. He'll get what he expects from her or nothing at all.

"Money, yes. I suppose you're paying for this?" If she were any less than the whore she is, she would have screamed at him. Or thrown something. Or perhaps cried, that he would think so little of her to think it was _only_ about stupid money or control that she has never really had in her life. Ever.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I've paid them already. Does that settle the matter?" Calm, his voice, calm and so superior than her, and she isn't sure if he thinks her sidling over to him is the apology she hopes it looks like or if he is just waiting to see how she plays her hand.

She stops, idly checking the tabletop for dust before straightening the doily, but she doesn't look him in the eyes. "And their meals? Where are they staying? How about next year? Will you pay for them then as well?"

There is a moment of silence; when she glances up, the vein in his forehead is dancing as he looks determinedly over her shoulder. "I am paying them more than enough to provide for their room and board, Cate. And I will be more than happy to pay for next year, if you should still refuse to see that they are necessary."

She rolls her shoulders, a shrug that she knows looks ladylike and elegant. "I suppose they may be needed; I just don't think it's likely after how Lawrence took care of things last year."

Lando snorts, then turns sharp eyes on her. "I suppose that settles it to your satisfaction?"

"As you said, you know this sort of thing far better than I." His look is outright suspicious, but he starts towards the door. She catches his arm, holding him back, and steps closer to him, close enough that she is very nearly touching him.

A whore has only two weapons. One is her body. The other is her mind. And with a lover's smile, she wraps herself around him, licking her lips and letting her eyes go soft and dark, parody of a woman who _wants_ her man. "And Lando? Never doubt that if it were only about control, I would never have a problem controlling you."

The hard edge comes into her smile even as his eyes widen.

For a moment, he can't believe it. She never does this -- and yes, he'd probably asked for it, jabbing at her like that, but still -- never, though she's had opportunities in the past during other spats over other things.

He can feel Julien sliding away from him. He's only just taken Julien up again, only since hiring the three hands to help out during the tournament, and Julien doesn't feel quite real yet. It always takes him a day or two around someone who knows Julien, someone who he has to convince, to feel steady in his persona. He isn't steady right now, and Cate's unexpected attack is rendering him even more unsteady. He can feel Julien's easy smile and indolent expression spilling out of his face, and he knows that what's replacing it is not Lando. Not any Lando that Cate has ever met.

He knows it's bad even as it's happening, but it's unsettlingly reminiscent of his last encounter with Bill; it isn't what he wants, but he can't _help_ it. He's tired, he'd spent a great deal of money to make Cate's house safe for this damned game, and he'd spent the last six weeks doing work that involved his fists more often than his wits, and he can't quite reign in his temper.

His hands curls around her upper arms, not squeezing but hard enough that she'd have no hope of getting away from him, if she'd had a mind to.

"Is that so," he says, voice tight as a wire. He sets her away, expressionless. "You overestimate yourself, Cate."

His voice, his accent, even his bearing have nothing to resemble Julien or even Lando in them, and she wonders for a moment just who rode out of Yuma after Christmas. Who else lives behind those eyes and what do those men do.

No matter. She’ll deal with whatever man he presents her with.

“Do I overestimate myself, Julien? Do I really?” She steps closer to him again and he very nearly steps back. It pulls her smile wider as she begins to circle around him, still speaking. “You mean that when you hold yourself in your hand and pull your lip between your teeth, when you’re breathing hard and fast, that you never think of me? Think of me spread out below you, my eyes closed, your name between my lips?”

He might have gasped, sucked in air like she did before, as she finishes circling him and heads across the room, hips swinging. She remembers the first time her father took her hunting, the heavy weight of the rifle in her hands, the sick curling anticipation in her gut as she sighted the rabbit, the kickback of the rifle, nearly knocking her down. The same anticipation that she feels now, not arousal or fear, but bits of both making her blood pulse. She’s not sure how the kickback will feel this time; it hasn’t knocked her off her feet yet.

“I know what I’m talking about, trust me. This is what I do.” Echoing his words from before as she leaned against the table, crossing her legs at the ankles, crossing her arms across her chest. Mocking him. “You may know poker, but I know men. And I know you.”

She has a moment to prepare herself for the kickback as he opens his mouth, his eyes hard and glittering.

"Do you, Cate?" he says, deep and soft, and watches her, assessing. He doesn't know what the hell she thinks she's doing, and he doesn't really give a damn.

"You know a man who has killed and nearly died for you, Cate. You know a man who lies for a living, who leaves for months at a time and comes back dirty and exhausted and sometimes hurt. You know a man who has never so much as _asked_ you for more than you are willing to give, and has never hidden the fact that he'd take it if you offered it freely."

He closes in, positions himself carefully close, in her space, but not touching her; his muscles feel tight and thrumming, but his mind is very clear. "What do you really know about me, Cate? My last name? My mother's name? The name of the place I grew up?" He drops his voice into a lower register, narrows his eyes. "Do you know how many men I've killed, Cate? Do you know how many names I have?"

He leans in close, until he knows his breath is ghosting over her lips, and she is very still, like a man with a rattlesnake crawling across his boots. "Are you so foolish to think that the fact that I want you blinds me to what you are, Cate? Manipulating men is what you do; I've always known that. It's what a whore has to do. But I manipulate people, too, Cate. That's all poker is; manipulation for money. And I do it every day, with Julien, and with... others, in other places. I wouldn't be alive if I didn't know how not to let what I want cloud my judgement."

He backs away, noting the little shudder that goes through her as he withdraws -- relief? he isn't sure -- but choosing not to say anything about it. "I did what had to be done to protect you and your girls, Cate." Deliberately, he pulls Julien on, accent and expression and posture. "Perhaps I overstepped myself, mademoiselle. A thousand pardons." He bows deeply from the waist, but doesn't take his eyes off of her. "I'll take my leave of your house."

Like always, he wins. She has never stood up to the battering of his truths. And it is truth, every word of it. Even, especially, the word whore, the name he has never used for her. She thinks of herself as a whore, but she doesn't think he ever has.

It's all true and she can't deny it, no matter how much she may wish she could.

"I don't think you can protect us. I don't think anyone could." She no longer wants his blood. She'd take his forgiveness, but she doesn't deserve it, not after today. And she won't take anything she doesn't deserve; she's already deeper in debt to him than she can ever repay.

She wants to sink to the floor, pull her knees to her chest and sob, but she can't. Even if her pride would allow it, her dress and bustle wouldn't. The thought is enough to draw something that feels like it might be a smile to her face for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Lando. I'm sorry for today. I'm sorry for taking your help all this time. I'm sorry for letting you think there was anything you could do that would really change anything. And god, I'm so sorry, more than I can ever say, for letting you get blood on your hands for me. It wasn't worth it, not for a whore. I'm so very sorry, Lando." She stops the words, biting the inside of her cheek, the table behind her the only thing keeping her off the floor.

"Cate..." Lando isn't leaving, but he's not staying either. He's thinking, she knows, safely hidden behind the mask of Julien LaFleur, a man who never allows anything to touch him, to affect him. She can read just enough to know he's still angry about what she's said, the rules of their relationship she's broken. And offended, although she cannot guess if it's over what came before or her telling him that he can't protect them. And he's trying to decide what really caused this. Can't have that.

"I'll keep the hired guns. You're right, we'll need them. I'm sure Lawrence will appreciate them. And I'll pay you back the money you've spent on them, travel and wages both. Only fair after what's happened here." She spreads her hands, knowing that he won't think she's only talking about the room and what has happened in it today. Other things have happened, beyond those doors. Death came to this place once, wearing Lando's face. She owes him more than just money can repay.

It sinks in like a soft rain after the dry season. He's staying, for the moment, but there are words moving behind the mask, words and thoughts and conclusions, so she heads him off. "Don't suppose you would tell me your mother's name?"

He gapes at her for a moment -- in all its unintended glory, his shock is a triumph brighter than his anger -- before bursting into laughter. "After all that, you want my mum's name?

"As you said, I don't know. Thought I might be able to impose on you to tell me." She keeps her hands out, splayed open, reassurance to a man who must always be on the guard for attack. He can't know that she no longer intends a verbal attack, but at least his gut knows that she will not use any other weapons on him.

His head tilts, arms crossing his chest, studying her a moment before he says, "I mentioned several things you don't know. Why not ask about them?"

And she'll give him truth, because he knows it, and because he deserves it, and most of all, because it hurts her to admit it. Not admitting that she knows, but admitting that she is afraid. "Because if I knew any of those things, neither of us would ever sleep the night through again, and I can't get by on only two hours sleep like you can."

She hopes he'll follow the false trails she's laid, but she's not counting on it.

"Madeleine," he says, looking at her through hooded eyes. She's nervous, and while he's tempted to blame that on the last three minutes of exquisitely painful verbal venom (from both of them, God, he's such a bastard -- it's something he's always known he has the potential for, but has never wanted to use on her, not like that), he thinks that might just be because it's easiest to think that. And he'd like things to be easy for once, just for a little while.

"I have never done anything for you that I regret, Cate," he says, and watches her cut her eyes away. She is too pale, and he isn't sure why he hadn't noticed that before.

 _Because she attacked me as soon as I got here,_ he thinks. _Because she did everything she could to distract me from it, and instead of seeing that, I called her a whore and told her she didn't have any power over me._

He doesn't sigh. He's an idiot, clearly. She's done this before. It's her way of trying to steer him away from things she thinks will put him in danger on her behalf. He's never been sure if this is a measure of her regard for him, or simply a means to keep herself from becoming further indebted to him. He's never has the words to tell her that there is no debt between them. That debt is cold and bloody and distant, and what they have is warm and vibrant and good (sometimes it's the only thing that keeps him moving forward, living, pushing himself through day after day on the road), and that means that there can never be debt weighing him down.

He can't ask her. She'll deny it, she'll clam up. He could ask Liv -- he has no doubt that Liv will tell him -- but that would cause tension between Cate and Liv, and Liv is the closest thing Cate has to a friend when Lando is away. He doesn't want that.

And she still won't look directly at him.

"I'm sorry, Cate. I... Sometimes my tongue works more like my knives than I want it to. I'm sorry."

He sounds sad and a little broken, almost, the way he apologizes. Even when she tries to apologize to him, to make things right, he still takes the blame on himself.

Sometimes she's altogether very like his knives, end of story.

"Don't apologize, a man has a right to defend himself. Don't argue with me either, you'll only end up saying you're sorry again." His mouth tilts up at her, but his eyes are still watching for problems. Damn.

She makes her way to a chair on legs that are still weak from anger and fear and also from having kept her knees locked straight for too long. The frailty she's showing is real, if exaggerated. Lando comes over and takes her hand to help her down into the chair.

He's still watching. "Are you all right? Is anything wrong?"

She thinks, _Of course something is wrong, you stupid man. When isn't something wrong?_ She says, "Just... Us, everything I've been taking care of for the game. The usual things still need done as well. Too much. I don't think I've gotten a chance to sit all day." She takes a moment to actually consider how she feels, now that she's calm and can feel something besides her heart pounding in terror or her stomach clenching in anger. She does actually feel weak. She's being honest with him after all. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've had a chance to eat."

His hand comes up, turns her face to him, and it's probably the first time she's actually made eye-contact with him since he's come back. He looks at her (and how is it that there's a difference between him watching and him looking? as if watching is for things she does and looking is for what she is, but it's the same eyes and the same man doing both, but it's not the same thing at all) a moment and asks, "Want me to get you something?"

"No, just give me a little bit. Can't go passing out in my own house; I'd never hear the end of it."

He nods once, still crouched next to her chair, and goes back to watching her. They're quiet between themselves -- not the easy quiet that they have upstairs, but a taut quiet, a quiet that ignores the sounds of the taproom that come through the closed doors.

She can still feel him watching, damn his eyes.

He's handled the truth well before, the time when Lawrence first came. Come to think of it, she tried to start a fight that night. She's getting better with practice.

But he understood things then, when she just told him how things were and to leave well enough alone. And he'll hear, sooner or later. More likely sooner, from Lawrence or Liv or even just conversation on the street. It's hardly a secret. He's possibly the only regular who doesn't know at this point. Probably the only one.

And frankly she's just too damn tired to dance around it tonight. Her last attempt ended with Lando stepping on her toes. "Sutherland's dead."

"Damn," he says, because he had genuinely liked the man -- he'd been very good to Cate and the girls -- and because he understands that this is the source of the problem. That being the case, he doesn't have to think very hard to figure out how it could be.

"And his son... what's his name?" He casts about the rubbish bin he keeps things like that in, and finds it before she can answer. "Keifer. He sold the place." And really, there is only one man in town who could afford to purchase Cate's house. Sinclair.

Damn.

"I can't even blame him," Cate says, subdued. "I'd have sold it, for that kind of money." But she sounds bitter, anyhow, in spite of the assertation. And Lando understands why. She's known Keifer since he was a barely-grown lad. It's likely she had arranged for his first "date" with a girl. No matter how much money it had been, she feels betrayed.

And Lando doesn't believe for a moment that she would have sold out, no matter what the cost. She would never put her girls directly under Sinclair's power like that, without even the uncertain barrier of herself to protect them from him.

And this is going to change things, of course. This is going to change everything. And not for the better.

He considers their options.

He has ten thousand dollars (and change) in his wallet right now. Under normal circumstances, it would be enough to buy the house. More than enough. He can't help hating himself a little for not having bought the place from Sutherland when he still could have; he'd had enough money before (albeit money that had been intended for something, a tournament usually) now. It just hadn't seemed important.

Donald Sutherland had been a good man, a good friend to Cate. There had been no need.

He knows damned well that Sinclair won't sell to him. Not for ten thousand dollars (the price of admission into _this_ tournament), probably not for twice that. He'll refuse for no reason other than to spite him, to spite Cate. To punish them for embarrassing him, once upon a time.

But if he had enough... If he was to offer a truly _unthinkable_ amount of money...

Maybe.

"Cate, is Sinclair registered to play this weekend?"

Lando is still watching intently, so she doesn’t roll her eyes at him, nor does she call him an idiot. But she thinks her lips may have formed the word against her will, because his look sharpens ever so slightly.

"Of course he is. After all, it's his town and his house, why wouldn't he?" Her stomach had turned itself upside down when he'd walked through the doors the other day.

 _"Why, if it isn't the loveliest woman in Yuma. Cate, my dear, how are you?" Sinclair's lips brushed the back of the hand he'd pulled from her side._

His words seemed like a poor imitation of Lando's, no, Julien's charm. His manner didn't match, eyes slithering over her skin like a rattler. And his hand held hers just a moment too long, even ignoring that any time at all would be too long for her tastes.

"Mr. Sinclair, I am well. I hope the day finds you the same?" She met his eyes as evenly as she can; it may have been a mistake to challenge him, but she would not bow her head to him, cater to him, as everyone else does. He may own her home, but he does not own her, never will.

She will throw herself under the wheels of an express train first.

His smile grew just a touch wider, transforming his face -- which, if she were to be objective, was certainly not unattractive -- into something evil, something to match his black heart. "Surely you know you can call me Harry by now, Cate. After all, I consider you a friend, and I am always very good to my friends."

"Of course you are, Mr. Sinclair. But you're a very busy man, you didn't come here just to ask after my health. How may I help you?" His eyes had narrowed just a bit when she had again refused to use Harry, but he was smiling when she'd finished. Oh God, what was he after now?

His eyes slid down her body again, ever so slowly, and if she hadn't spent years having men judge her worth in such glances, she would have blushed. "Well, I did find myself lacking in friendly companionship, but the most important thing is that I wanted you to know I intend to be in your tournament. Certainly you have room for me in it?"

"There will be room for everyone who can afford the entry fee. Come in the day before it starts and bring your money in then. Was there anything else you needed to know?" If only it could be this easy. She'd go to mass in the morning, if it really was. She'd strip all her jewelry into the offering plate in gratitude.

"There was one other thing I was wondering. Will that man of yours be playing? I'm looking forward to the opportunity to match my wits against some really talented players." The last sounded like a compliment, but the way he said it implied that Lando was not counted in Sinclair's definition of talented players.

She smiled, pretending she'd heard only the compliment. "Oh yes, Julien will be playing if he can make it. He wouldn't be content to sit out a game like that."

"Ah, well, I hope he makes it. So many dangers for a man traveling alone. Anything can happen out here. It must worry you terribly, not knowing what he's doing or what others are doing to him," he said in a voice that would make angels weep, it sounded so very innocent.

"I don't worry about him. Julien is quite capable of taking care of himself. Don't concern yourself on his account or mine." Thinly veiled threats, implications that her not-lover was unfaithful, and it wasn't even dinner time. Lovely. Sinclair was nothing if not predictable.

For just a moment, a shadow of displeasure crossed his face before he cloaked it again in false concern. "But what about you, Cate? Can he take care of you? It can't be easy being a woman alone in a town like this."

She focused on the hand sweeping in the direction of the town, trying not to laugh and nearly failing when she realized he'd pointed -- most likely unintentionally -- in the direction of his own ranch. "But Mr. Sinclair, I'm hardly alone."

"You're not?"

"Oh no, I have Lawrence." And she took the opportunity to sweep her hand -- quite intentionally -- toward a tall shadow that detached itself from the wall, face impassive as the light hit it.

"Ah, yes, I'd quite forgotten you had your own enforcer. Well, I shall sleep easier tonight knowing you are well protected. If you will excuse me, Cate?" He stepped off quickly, heading to the cluster of available girls by the bar.

She had an urge to begin wearing an apron, just so she could tie Lawrence to its strings, if Sinclair would always disappear so quickly.

Of course, it's unlikely such a tactic would work for long, but she still wants to do it.

She would sleep easier.

Lando still hasn't said anything and it makes her gut twist again, makes her fight to keep her shoulders from pulling up and in.

"Don't do anything stupid, Lando. Don't even think about it. If nothing else, you get yourself killed trying to pull a fast one on Sinclair and I'll never be able to pay you back the money I owe you. You wouldn't want to leave me feeling guilty for the rest of my life, would you?"

He doesn't even humor her with a laugh.

"Whatever else I am, Cate, I'm not a cheat. I'm not thinking of rigging the tournament."

He can't quite help it that his voice bristles slightly at the idea. He's never fixed a game in his life. Maybe he hasn't operated on the right side of the law in every one of his endeavors in the past, but as far as poker goes, he's an honest man. He's never used anything but his skill and his mind to win, and he doesn't plan on changng that now.

What he is thinking of, though, is winning this tournament. Depending on the number of entrants, the pay off could easily be in the area off a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, maybe more. So much money that even Sinclair would sell Cates house. Even to Lando.

And if he can't win -- that's always a possibility, as poker is about luck as much as it is about skill -- well, if he can't win, maybe he can make a deal with Sinclair. Maybe he can arrange for _Sinclair_ to win, with Lando's help.

He doesn't think too closely about that right now. Not right after telling Cate he didn't have any plans to rig the game. It's not cheating, not precisely, but...

Well, it's closer than Lando has ever come to it.

But for Cate, for Cate's girls, he would do it.

Never mind that, for now, though.

"I've got some extra money, Cate, if you need it. I probably can make a little more in the next few nights, before the tournament. Are you in the hole to Sinclair now?"

“N o, I’m not.” She snorts before she can stop herself. “That’s the one thing I’ve managed not to gum up thus far.”

“Truth?”

She supposes she deserves that, after how she’s acted today, after other times when she’s played word games to keep him from learning things she’d rather he didn’t know. “Yes. Truth. He raised the rent on me, yes, but nothing we can’t meet so far.”

His hand reaches inside his coat and she says, “You had best be reaching for a cigar or your flask, Lando, because if you pull your wallet out, I’m beating you with it.”

One side of his mouth quirks up. “I’d dearly love to see you try.”

But he pulls out a flask -- small, silver, with curving filigree curling around it -- and takes a pull from it before holding it out to her. When she shakes her head, he only jerks it toward her again and she surrenders, taking a small sip. It burns down her throat, leaves her eyes watering.

He smiles fully this time, saying, “What? Can’t hold your liquor?”

“Not this rot gut. Lord, I hope you didn’t pay for that.” The burning has faded and she has yet to feel the slow warmth of it spread through her body -- she will soon, very soon, she knows, drinking on an empty stomach -- but she is a bit distracted, removed now. She thinks that may have been his intention. Then again, he may just have been going for his wallet and the flask was the only other thing he could pull out of his jacket.

“It’s not all that bad. You just have to get used to it.” He takes another pull, shifts his weight a bit, and she feels like she should make him get up and go to a chair. He’d surely ridden all day; his joints must be aching. “Cate, I do have money. You know it’s yours for the asking.”

The bastard had been going for his wallet after all.

“Yes. Let’s see... The entrance fee for the tournament is ten thousand dollars, so you must have ten thousand and one hundred dollars. Is that about right?”

“Ten thousand, three hundred and twenty-seven dollars, sunshine. You were a bit short.”

He is exaggeratedly proud of himself and she feels a smile stretch across her face. “All that means is you didn’t get a chance to shop for gifts before you came to town.”

“Caught me there.” His face again turns serious. “Let me help.”

“Lando...” she says, before running out of words and just leans her head against the back of the chair.

"Cate," he says, and grins at the look she gives him, acid and exasperated. But he lets it go, because he doesn't want to push her right now, not really. Not when it's clear that she's tired, like she's been treading water for too long to put up any kind of a fight when the next wave comes. "Never mind, then," he says, and leans his hip against the desk.

"I'm just tired," she says, and makes the effort to give him a smile that barely reaches her eyes. Better than nothing, but not as good as he'd like. "I'm not even fit for civil conversation."

He quirks a brow at her. "Are you ever?" he asks, making his voice echo with disbelief, and she grins, eyes crinkling slightly, and that's better by far, and he grins back, feeling relief warm his belly. Not broken, not his Cate. Just bent and bowed by circumstance, but she always bounces back. "Let me roll you a smoke, sunshine. We'll go sit on the porch and drink peach brandy and watch the town go by. Let Liv run the main room for an hour or two. She can handle it, and you're grooming her anyhow, don't think I haven't noticed. Come hold hands with me where the whole town can see." He hesitates, because he doesn't usually say things like this, and because her eyes are already a little wide. "I could use a little time to just be me. I can't do that with anyone but you."

He has to force himself not to duck his head, to avoid her eyes.

He’s tired, her Lando, he’s tired and world weary and she dropped this mess into his lap the minute he came through the doors, just the way she always does.

No, not this. Not guilt, not tonight. Tonight is not going to be spent stewing in recriminations, not when he needs her to be there for him.

“Can we eat first?”

He laughs, pointing at her. “And you say I think too much about food.”

“And wine and women. You forgot that part.” And now her stomach takes a moment to chime in, growling loud enough they probably heard it upstairs. For a moment, she can almost see a gent stopping and asking what the noise was, and it makes her laugh. When she explains it to Lando, he laughs with her, brash and boyish and she can almost pretend that he’s looking to comfort her tonight, wanting to hold hands on the double rocker as the sun sets.

He gets himself under control first, holding his hand out to help her up from the chair, “Shall we, mademoiselle?”

“Let’s do.” She rests her hand in his (warm, calloused, strong hand, hand of a man that works and rides and fights) and allows him to help her rise. He keeps hold of her hand as they walk to the parlor doors, opening them and letting her precede him.

They walk into the main room, swirls of laughter and smells of cigars and perfume and so many bright silk dresses standing out against dark wool suits parting to allow them pass through.

Together.


	2. Courtesty Call: Cate, Lando, Sean, Yuma, February, 1879

Lando hasn't seen Cate since before Christmas, which in the grand scheme of things, isn't really that long. It's been longer between visits before -- far longer -- but things had been different then. Harry Sinclair hadn't owned Cate's house then. Lando is anxious for her.

Also, he misses her. He smiles, tucking Julien's slick curls behind his ears, and then dismounts easily. He's riding a fine, strong Tennessee Walker he's taken to calling Red Man. He's not as fast a some, but he's plenty smart, and Lando will be sad to give him up. He'll have to, soon enough. Dare not let things become too familiar.

And Ruben likes smaller, faster horses.

He slaps the reins to the post hard enough that they spin round twice, and leaves it as good enough. No need to tie Red Man, and if anyone tries to steal him (unlikely to begin with, that's a lot of horse to be stealing in broad daylight, and hitched right out in front of the house), they're like to get bit for their trouble. He pats Red Man's neck fondly, and mutters, "See to you in a bit, fella."

His saddlebags weigh enough to make his right arm ache with old pain, but he doesn't shift them to the left.

He climbs the steps, hearing, with an internal wince, Julien's smart boots sounding out loud on the boards of the porch. In a day or two, the sound will have regained some of its comfort, its sense of home, but for now he's still raw enough from the road to feel as though it's unbearably loud and conspicuous. He ignores it; nothing to be done.

He can't hear the piano, though he supposes it's a bit early in the day for that. The doors are open, though, and he pushes through with something like relief, already arranging his features into Julien's wicked smile.

Dominic, having gleefully told Sean that Cate’ll be a while because she’s not laced up yet and Liv’s gone missing, abandons him in the front parlor to wait until the mistress of the house feels ready to appear. Sean parks his hat on the white plaster bust of Aphrodite adorning the top of the piano and idles around the room, occasionally picking up and putting down some bit of china or glass frippery from the mantle or one of the side tables.

The odd thing about whores, Sean reflects, is that the more expensive they are the less like whores they’re willing to act. Sean’s had mining camp doxies who’d fulfill his wildest fantasies for two bent bits and then come up with their own suggestions when his ingenuity finally failed. They’d think nothing of appearing before a man in their hide, let alone their corset and drawers. But Cate’s a cat of a different class, so she’ll keep him waiting in her stiflingly proper parlor with the fringed skirts hung over the furniture legs, as if the men who come here to fuck could be overwrought by the sight of a finely turned cabriole. Sean feels a certain wistful regret for the kind of whore who’d at least come down in her wrapper with her hair loose.

The sound of boot heels on the porch outside brings Sean to attention. It’s early in the day for custom; cattle-hands are liable to head for the whores the second they set foot in a town, be it day or night when they get in, but generally cattle-hands can’t afford Cate’s rates and take their business to one of Yuma’s less prestigious establishments.

The boot heels ring their way to and through the double doors into the parlor, and Sean narrows his eyes quizzically at the sight of their owner. The boy’s a right dandy, in dark drainpipe pants and a coat with flared saddle skirts, a brocade vest, a starched shirt and a folded silk tie. His boots have elegantly undercut heels and pointed toes, his hair – dark and waved – is oiled enough to hold combed back from his face and long enough that he has to wear it pushed behind his ears. There’s dust on his boots and the hems of his pants, and a pair of saddlebags slung over his shoulder. He comes to an abrupt halt just over the threshold and stares at Sean.

Sean remembers hearing gossip about the fancy card-shark that squires Cate, much to Harry Sinclair’s annoyance by all accounts. Sean’s finding it hard to believe this slip of a boy was the suitor that drove Sinclair from the field, but if he is, Sean’d like to shake his hand. Sinclair’s a pain in the arse and anyone who thwarts him is a friend of Sean’s.

Lando stops, startled. There is a stranger in Cate's parlor, a man with a hard, handsome face and sharpish eyes. His hair is light, but not so light as to be called blond, and squashed to his head in the manner of a man who's been wearing a hat. After a moment, Lando sees it from the corner of his eyes, adorning a bust that Lando's money had almost certainly paid for. He thinks that Cate might not much care for that, and is amused.

The bloke doesn't look quite comfortable in this room, with its decidedly feminine decor -- Lando has never felt entirely comfortable here either, but the part of him that's Julien has always liked it just fine. The stranger is dressed plainly enough -- dark cloth pants, white shirt with a starched collar, black vest, and a slightly bedraggled looking string-tie, and worn, sprung boots, all of it topped by a worn, ankle-length duster that might once have been the color of wheat, but is now darker with age and wear, though it is also meticulously clean -- to be a rancher or someone traveling through. More likely to be the latter, at this time of day, though he seems a bit too clean for a drover.

"Good day, and my apologies," Lando says. "I expected someone else." For the smallest of moments, he considers just going, turning back into the entryway and taking the stairs up to Cate's rooms, but he gives up the idea almost before it's fully formed in his mind. Julien wouldn't, so Lando can't. He walks toward the man, hand extended. "I am Julien La Fleur, monsieur, and I am sorry if we have met before, but I do not recognize your face." He tosses out Julien's most engaging smile. "Or perhaps you are new in town?"

Sean smiles, chin cocked at an angle, before he’s quite made the decision to do so. This’ll be Cate’s fancy-man alright. La Fleur, did he say? Sean doesn’t remember the name the gossips were bandying about, but it was something foreign alright, something Frog. And there isn’t a whore alive could resist that self-consciously elaborate courtesy, that vivid smile. Sean takes a step forward to meet the other man and accepts the hand offered to him.

“Sean Bean,” Sean says by way of introduction. “And, aye, I suppose I am newish in town, this time round at any road. I’ve been up in Prosperous the last few years, an’ down in San Luis before that. But I know Yuma well, passed through here I don’t know how many times in the last, oh, must be near ten years now. But I don’t think we’ve met.”

Sean lets that hang, his smile sliding a little more to one side.

Lando knows the town of Prosperous. Or rather, Ruben does. He's been there before, and he knows Sean Bean's name; it had been enough to keep Lando (as Ruben) away from Prosperous for nearly a year, as the man's reputation had been formidable. He wonders idly if Bean still uses a repeating rifle, and deliberately represses a little smile at the memory of certain stories -- almost certainly exaggerated -- Lando had heard while running with Ruben's mates. Sean Bean had been the Law in Prosperous, capital L, and while Lando had never heard anything to indicate he had been anything other than _honest_ Law, in the long run that doesn't really matter. Bean had been effective, no mistaking that.

 _Dangerous man, Lando,_ Bills whispers in the nether places of Lando's mind. _Mind yourself, guard your eyes._

On short acquaintance, Lando knows two things. One is that Sean Bean smells of gun oil, the faintly sweet scent of it jarring with the tang of wood polish that always lingers in Cate's parlor, a silent suggestion of what Lando would see if a stray gust of wind were to send that duster to flapping. The other is that Bean has the seamed, weathered face and hard, flat eyes of a man who has seen it all and has lived to tell about it (though if Lando had to speculate, he'd guess that Bean doesn't actually _tell_ much of anything; he has the look of a man that keeps things close). It doesn't take much of a leap to reach the conclusion that there is a new Sheriff in Yuma, Arizona (and perhaps, given the reputation and the intelligent appraisal Lando can see in this man's eyes, one that Sinclair won't be able to buy or conveniently kill off), and Lando is looking at him.

Later, he will learn what he can from Cate. For now, he'll have to assume the very worst (which is to say, assume that the man's reputation is deserved, that he is smart, cunning, and ruthless) and deal with him on that basis.

"I am very much a traveling man myself, monsieur Bean," Lando tells him, using Julien's easy smile like a shield. "And Yuma is a good place for a traveling man, this house is a good place for one, easy on the eyes and restful for the mind."

He turns, back to Sean Bean, and deposits his saddlebags on the floor, leaning against the leg of one of Cate's imported chairs, and rolls his shoulders. "I was lately in San Francisco," -- a bald-faced lie -- "plying my skills at various games of chance." He turns back to Bean and grins. "Rather successfully, to my immense delight." He gestures to the bags. "Gifts, for the ladies."

He pauses, as though he's only just thought of it. "Forgive me, s’il vous plait, for not asking before; did someone tell Cate you were waiting? I am afraid that the ladies are not..." he smiles, "particularly early risers, as I'm sure you know."

“Oh, aye, there’s apparently some bit o’ trouble with … ” Sean says, gesturing with both hands fisted at waist level and moving outwards, “… laces.”

Dominic seems to cherish a fond hope that he will someday fluster Sean with the details of the girls’ toilettes, but Sean’s seen enough corset stays and unlaced and laced enough of them that it’ll take more than that to flurry him. But he’s interested to see what La Fleur makes of his being privy to this charming domestic detail. “But I expect she’ll be down directly.”

He leans back, one shoulder resting against the mantle and one boot heel hooked on the fender.

Lando's amused at Bean's expressive gesture, inferring the laces of certain undergarments without expressly stating such; Lando guesses Dominic can be held responsible for this particular bit of private information. He wonders if the Sheriff knows that when Dominic does such things it usually means he's trying to gauge one's interest in him, rather than in the ladies themselves. Teasing, laughing Dominic; he likes men like Sean Bean, men who are roughly handsome, just as much as he likes men like Lando... or like Julien, rather.

He can see Bean regarding him, his body oh so casual while his eyes are deeply watchful, and he supposes he is waiting for jealousy. He won't get it, of course. Not from Julien -- he is as much a whore as the ladies here, albeit he receives no money for his body -- and not from Lando, as Lando doesn't own Cate and never has. Doesn't want to. If there were jealousy, it would most likely lie in the direction of Dom's interest, but Lando needn't worry, he suspects. If Dom hasn't figured it out yet, he will soon enough. This man has likely never looked at another man with desire in his life.

“Gifts, eh?” Sean says, casting a speculative glance at the saddlebags at Lando’s feet. “Then you’re a … friend of the family?”

"Friend, is perhaps, too... uncertain a term," he says, and laughs, both self-depreciating and with the full understanding of his own charm. "So malleable, really, so vague in connotation. They are my darlings, and I am _their_ darling, and the arrangement suits us all quite comfortably."

It's as nice a way as any to admit he's been to bed with nearly everyone under this roof, and more than once, and he wonders if a man like this will ever understand that his very safety, his very life, depends upon these women (and Dominic), and that he has never had reason to doubt them. That Lando coddles and pets and loves them all, that he pays them for their time (even when they tell him he needn't, which is usually these days), but the money means almost nothing; it's everything else that wins their hearts, and their hearts are what keep him safe.

Fully half of Cate's girls know things about him that could see him hung, and if he ever _is_ hung, he'll spit in the devil's eye before he believes that any of them would have anything to do with it.

"And a man cannot have too many friends, I firmly believe, monsieur," Lando goes on, flashing a wicked smile and flickering one eyelid in the barest suggestion of a wink. "The friendlier the better, of course. And the ladies, well… they can be quite devastatingly friendly."

Sean throws his head back at that and laughs full throated, and to God he hopes whatever La Fleur is up to Sean won’t ever have to hang him for it because the lad’s a charmer and a rogue and deserves the devil’s own good luck.--

Cate presses Dominic into service as a lady’s maid, despite his apparently genuine panic when confronted with the yards of cording and dozens of eyelets that are required to constrict Cate into the twenty-inch waist of her black silk afternoon dress. She buttons herself up and jumbles half-a-dozen bracelets onto each of her wrists. It’s not that she dislikes keeping Sean waiting, it’s that she dislikes keeping him waiting in her front parlor. There’s nothing in this house that will particularly benefit from the scrutiny of the law, and plenty that won’t.

Cate goes downstairs, coming through the private door just beyond the parlor. She sees the two men through the open doors and falters very slightly in surprise, then keeps walking, her tread light and even.

Lando’s facing away from her; it’s Sean who sees her first, the smile on his face sliding away into something more considered. If she had to, she’d admit that she likes this about him: that he smiles less at her than he does at the girls. He appreciates that she personally is not for sale; it’s a point some of her clientele seem to struggle with.

Lando, following the drift of Sean’s gaze, turns to face her.

“Julien,” Cate smiles, letting herself start forward with an artless eagerness she would never indulge if they were alone. But it comes easily, the note of relief and joy in her voice wholly genuine. It’s been so long, and it’s been hard, and it doesn’t help that some scrap of her survival has been due to the other man standing by the mantle, watching Lando and her with coolly amused eyes. If Julien’s reputation is the major restraint on Sinclair’s behavior, then Sean’s recent presence has contributed some small respite too. So far, Sean and Sinclair have avoided a direct confrontation, but Sean’s ready enough to knock heads when Sinclair’s men start throwing their weight around in town.

“Ah, mon amour," Lando murmurs, and there is no need to feign his deep and very real pleasure. He catches her up, hands spanning her waist easily -- for the love of shiny nickels, how can she even breathe in that thing -- and gives her only a very small twirl; she is smiling and flushed (and doesn't she look a vision when she does, even if it is only because Lando is manhandling her in front of the Sheriff), and there is amusement and the promise of a tongue-lashing in her eyes in equal measure. "Tu es aussi belle que le matin, lumière de mon coeur."

He sets her gently on her feet, and for a moment she rests her brow against the ridge of his cheekbone, one hand lying softly on his chest between their bodies. He kisses her forehead, once, twice, and then she pulls away, her body saying more eloquently than anything else could that she is aware of Sean Bean standing there, and wishes very much that he were elsewhere.

Smart girl, how he loves her.

She leaves her hands in his for several seconds, and they smile at one another, and then Lando dips in as though to kiss her pretty lips -- all done up for the Sheriff, no doubt, red as berries and twice as delicious looking -- and then shifts so that it lands on her cheek instead, as though merely remembering himself in time to avoid embarrassing her.

"You steal my breath," he murmurs (which is absolutely true) just loud enough, and raises her hand to his lips, brushing them across her knuckles. "My very heart, Cate."

She smiles (she will scold him later, but just the flush on her cheeks is worth it) and lets go of his hands. When she turns to face the Sheriff, she steps slightly back at the same time, closer to Lando, so that he can see the fine skin of the back of her neck, and he forgets to wonder if her need to be close to him is real, or all part of the show.

“Sheriff Bean,” Cate says, and she pushes back into Lando enough to feel that there’s not so much as a hitch in his breathing or a tightening in his stance.

Cate sways away again, reassured. She doesn’t know how, but he already knows who – or rather _what_ \- Sean is.

“I’m so sorry,” she goes on. “You’ve caught me at rather a bad moment. Have you met my – Monsieur La Fleur?”

Sean lifts one hand to his forehead, rubbing his fingertips in the front of his hair to hide his expression while he stifles his grin. Fools, the pair of them, but they make him smile. They’re a bloody handsome couple, he so dark and she so fair, both of them tall and willowy and dressed like fashion plates, and Sean’s wickedly pleased to see this ruffling of Cate’s coolly perfect composure. With her cheeks flushed up and her eyes shining like this, Sean can almost imagine she might be worth having. Maybe there’s some eager warmth in there after all, for a man she fancies at least.

“Aye, Mister La Fleur and I have made our how do’s,” Sean says as soon as he can trust his voice not to husk with repressed laughter. “And I won’t intrude on youse much longer, but I wanted to talk to you about the poker tournament.”

Cate’s expression smoothes and one finely arched eyebrow comes up just fractionally, in what Sean now realizes is her business face and not, as he believed until just a moment ago, her habitual set of features.

“I understand this thing was quite a draw last year, an’ bound to be even bigger this time. More players coming in from all over … more old friends meetin’ up again. More blokes that _aren’t_ exactly old friends meeting up again.”

Cate’s expression is chilling by the second, and Sean holds his hand up in a placating gesture.

“I’m not lookin’ to interfere here, not lookin’ to spoil anyone’s fun nor profit. I’ve lived in San Luis long enough to know the gamblers bring big money into town. The winners spend big and the losers spend small but every storeowner and tailor and rotgut brewer in the county will be counting that stake money before the month’s over. I just want to be sure the undertaker’s not turning a profit too.”

“There will be … house enforcement,” Lando says smoothly over Cate’s shoulder. “As there was last year.”

“Fair enough,” Sean says, and now he’s addressing them both. “But I’d like to have a couple of deputies – no badges mind, I know you don’t want your guests spooked – round about. If something happens, if you need help – look, my only concern is that no one gets killed over this. If it comes to it and you need help keeping the peace here, send for me. I don’t plan on snooping into yer guests' business, I’ve got enough to bloody do - pardon my language Miss - looking after the trouble I’ve already got without looking for more. As far as I’m concerned, for the duration of the tournament anythin’ that happens in this house can _stay_ in this house if it means you’ll send for help if you need it.”

Lando slides a hand around Cate's waist and rests it there lightly. He can feel the tension in her frame, and he runs his thumb lightly along the fabric of her dress; she won't be able to feel it on her skin through all those layers, but she'll feel the buzz of it against the fabric.

"The Sheriff's offer is very kind, mon coeur," he murmurs silkily. "And perhaps, if his deputies prove to be adequate, next year there will be no need for your house to incur the cost of additional guards."

Not that her house does now. Lando pays them, and will continue to do so as long as they are needed. He anticipates that to be true next year and the year after and so on, but no good can come of rejecting Sean Bean's offer, thereby earning his scorn, or worse, suspicion. Lando's sure Cate knows this, but her stubborn streak occasionally (very, very occasionally, he admits) overcomes her sense.

He won't answer for her though; that would be a sure way to earn her wrath later, in private, and he doesn't want to fight with her. Besides, he makes it a point to interfere in the running of her business as little as possible. The tournament is an exception, and on those few occasions that he feels guilt for his heavy-handedness there, he rationalizes it by reminding himself of his greater experience in the subtleties of poker and the way gamblers sometimes behave.

Desperation exists hand in hand with High Stakes games, and desperate men are dangerously unpredictable.

Better she be angry with him than that they be unprepared for dealing with dangerous men.

He smiles at the Sheriff over her shoulder, a brief expression of exasperation and commiseration over the foolishness of women.

Cate, in a failure of control she knows Lando won’t miss, turns her head to look directly up at him. She’s trying to read his eyes, trying to tell if this easy capitulation is because he doesn’t sense a threat, or because he does sense one and doesn’t wish to alert Sean’s suspicions. But his dark eyes show her nothing except her own reflection, and Julien’s smoothly deflecting courtesy. Cate looks back at Sean.

“Yes, that is very kind of you. Very open-handed.”

Sean nods firmly and unfolds himself from his comfortable position by the mantle.

“Right so, that’s settled. I’ll knock the dirt off the pair of them and tell them to put their party manners on. You have any problems, you let me know. Now I won't intrude on you any longer.”

He crosses to the piano and retrieves his hat from Aphrodite’s sculptured curls, knocks the cleft in the crown out with his left hand, knocks it back in again with his right, and takes his leave.

“Miss Cate. Mister La Fleur.”

Lando makes a bow that wins a smirk and another nod from Sean, then he’s gone in a swirl of coat skirts and Cate’s annoyed to find the wave of relief she’s been anticipating doesn’t actually materialize.

“Well,” Lando drawls, and his high good humor scrapes over her nerves like a cat’s claws on glass.

“Not here, come upstairs,” she says, and before he has a chance to answer she goes out of the room and back up the narrow private stairway to her rooms.

Lando pauses to scoop up his saddlebags, and to throw a glance at the double doors thoughtfully. Sean Bean is smarter than Lando particularly likes, but seems inclined to leave things to go along as they like, provided they don't cause him any trouble. For himself, Lando would have been just as happy to have Yuma sheriff-less, but if there has to be one, perhaps this bloke won't make things too difficult.

He shrugs the saddlebags up over his shoulder (his left, as there is no one to see and remark on it on Cate's back stairs, and his right arm is aching dully) and takes the steps two at a time, emerging from the narrow passage on the landing. The door to Cate's sitting room is open, so he saunters in without pausing.

Cate is waiting for him, and he observes her face, tight but otherwise bland, for several seconds before he drops his bags against the wall and heads for the little sideboard, intent on knocking back a shot of brandy to numb the ache in his shoulder. He knows it'll only take a few days in Cate's bed for it to feel just as good as it ever was, but between now and then, a bit of something to diffuse the pain will do well enough.

He waits until he has it poured and the glass in his hand before he turns toward her.

"Could be worse," he says softly, and she tips her face up slightly, brow arched. He tosses back the brandy, barely grimacing at the burn, and he sees her face soften somewhat -- she knows him too well, he supposes -- as her eyes flicker toward the tumbler. "He seems the sort to stay out of any business that isn't forced on him, Sunshine, and it sure as hell could be worse."

Cate turns away from him, walking slowly over to the couch.

“Yes, he always seems to be remarkably … reasonable.”

She sweeps her skirts out of the way and sits, leaning back among the couch pillows. She looks at Lando, in the hopes that his feelings might give her a clue to the strange diffuse dissatisfaction she’s feeling herself. He’s watching her though, and his curiosity shutters anything else from his eyes. Cate turns her head, resting her chin in her hand and her elbow on the carved wood on the arm of the couch. She’s tired of being looked at, by men whose eyes keep her out so she’s left guessing motivations, trying to judge intent from their words when she knows they don’t mean what they say anyway. She’s tired of Lando being away for so long that when he comes back they’re strangers again, and she has to unlearn her sharp edges around him all over again. She wonders why Dominic and the girls don’t seem to have this problem, why she’s the only one that can’t seem to take him as a favor. To be appreciated when he comes but not counted on, and certainly not berated for not coming sooner.

“Liv likes him,” she announces, looking back at Lando with a determined smile. “He tried out a couple of the others, but his third week here he had Liv, and now she goes to visit him for a few hours every Sunday afternoon. She doesn’t say much – I think she feels a little guilty, as if she’s giving aid and comfort to the enemy – but she comes back looking like a cat that’s been well stroked.”

She pauses. It’s natural that they should have this conversation, that she should share her observations of the almost three months Sean has been in Yuma and Lando’s been gone. And anything that impinges on Sinclair might yet impinge on Cate’s house, which in turn might affect Lando’s refuge here. Here is source of her disquiet.

“He’s been riding herd on Sinclair’s men,” she says, and she can hear that her voice has too many edges. “Throwing them in jail every time they get into a bar-fight. There’s a story going around that he’s told Sinclair if he can’t hire men who can keep their guns in their holsters, Sean’s going to stop them wearing their guns in town. I don’t believe it of course – he might just as well tell them not to wear their pants – but I think the fact that story exists at all is something of a compliment to him, don’t you?”

"Has he now? That's interesting," Lando says, and it's true, it is interesting, but...

But he's tired, and he doesn't like the way Cate sounds. Like she's dredging up something to say. Like she's delivering a report to a field general. Like she's... well, like she's talking to a stranger.

He frowns and rubs at his brow with the first two fingers of his right hand, ignores the grating twinge in that elbow -- and it is still something small enough that it can be ignored, so that's alright -- and then slides his hand into his coat for his cigarette case.

Once he's got a smoke in his hand, though, he doesn't really want it. He rolls it through his fingers for a moment, and then tucks it behind his ear, then slides the case back into the interior pocket of his jacket. "Liv is a good judge of character," he says, and now he's doing it too, casting about for something to say as though they hadn't been through hell together, as though they didn't have years of blood and history and trust between them.

Well to hell with that.

"I've missed the hell out of you, Sunshine," he says, and drops onto the couch beside her, and it feels like he's relaxing for the first time in years. He lets his head fall back against the couch and closes his eyes. "I'm so bloody tired."

There’s a nasty moment when Cate thinks she may cry, just fold into angry unhappy tears.

The pang of it twists in her guts and now she’s all too aware of its form, of her completely unreasonable anger towards Sean and his cynical pragmatic tact that she _should_ be grateful for. Of her – she skitters mentally around the question of reasonableness versus unreasonableness – anger towards Lando for always leaving her alone just long enough for her to attain a kind of numb calm and then sauntering back to shatter her peace. Of her anger towards herself. If Lando is a splinter in her heart, it’s because she’s allowed him to become one. She can tell him to leave. She can _force_ him to leave – his safety depends on the goodwill of everyone in the house, he can’t compel her to protect him. A single bold stroke – she thinks of Sean, whether he would feel obliged to act if he knew who and what Lando was – and she could be free of this forever. Then she turns her head to look at Lando, and though she tries to hold onto her anger and the jagged strength it gives her, the feelings slip and are gone quicker than wind through her fingers.

He’s lying back with his head resting on the curve of the couch, his long limbs sprawled bonelessly, and his hands open and empty on his thighs.

Cate actually feels it, feels love like a river breaking bounds inside her, feels the strength of it in her veins, feels it washing away her fear.

“Poor thing,” she says, her voice steady and low and warm.

Lando opens his eyes, a slow weary wing beat of his dark lashes. Cate leans towards him, palming his forehead, and his skin’s cool but a little clammy.

“But look, you’ve made it all the way upstairs and no one’s seen you,” Cate murmurs. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to keep you a secret. You’re going to go to bed right now, and sleep as long as you like. And when you wake up, I’ll tell Dominic there’s a customer for a bath and have him bring the water up to the front bedroom. And when you’re washed and shaved and ready for them, then you can announce your presence to your adoring harem.”

She unfolds from the couch, holding her hands out to him to help him up.

“Are you hungry? Do you need food first, or sleep?”

"Neither," he says. "Both," and then tugs her back down by her hands, so that she lands in an unladylike sprawl across his lap -- although in all honesty, she can't be all that unladylike in the yards and miles of bloody skirts with that damned corset holding her body rigid, not at all like she feels at night when she sleeps in his arms, soft and warm, which is what he really wants, but this will do -- with a startled little noise, part laugh, part disapproval.

He pushes his face into the clean, sweet-smelling curve of her neck and the silk of her hair tickles his jaw and chin. "Just stay," he murmurs, and closes his eyes, perfectly content to lose himself in the smell of her and the feel of her hands on his shoulders. "Just for a minute, Cate."

He feels her fingertips on his brow, brushing back hair and stroking tension away, and he smiles faintly.

"It's all right," Cate murmurs. "We're all right."

Lando exhales, a pleased sound that's just short of a laugh, then takes a deep shaking inhalation and sighs out again. He turns his face against her throat and sort of flexes under her, finding a more comfortable angle.

"Everything's all right," Cate breathes.

Lando sniffs, and he twists his fingers in a fold of her skirt, clutching at a pick of the stiff silk. Cate stays absolutely still. After only a moment his head falls back a little, his face no longer pressed so purposefully against her.

Very carefully Cate eases back, shifting most her weight into the couch pillows from his lap but leaving one leg hooked over his at the knee. Lando frowns in his sleep, but his fingers fall open around the piece of her skirt. Cate leans her own head against the couch back, studying him thoughtfully and listening to the loud steady tick of the clock on the mantle.

His breath's coming deep and tidal now, and his head slips down on the smooth satin upholstery towards hers. Cate feels her own heart and lungs slip into the same slow rhythm as his. She blinks, heavy-eyed. A door bangs downstairs, and she hears Dominic laughing raucously. Lando's hand twitches against her skirt, and the rasp of his roughened fingers on the silk seems loud.

Cate closes her eyes, shifting a little to ease the dig of her corset edge into her hip. She can hear the house beginning to stir into life again, but she's sinking slowly and sweetly into quiet, and peace, and safety. She reaches out, curling the back of her hand into Lando's cupped palm, and settles, and breathes ...


	3. Language Lesson: Lando, Elijah, Yuma, February, 1879

"Êtes-tu bon?" Lando says, and watches Elijah's brow ridge into equal parts confusion and determination.  
It takes Elijah nearly three minutes, but eventually he comes up with, "Je suis très bien, merci."

Lando doesn't smile at the attempt. Elijah _probably_ wouldn't bristle -- they've been working on this for a while now, and he's become much better at handling the occasional gentle tease -- but he'd rather not risk it. And it's a damned good attempt, aside from the fact that it comes out sounding more like, 'jay swees tress been, mercy.'

"A little faster, Elijah, there is a certain rhythm to consider. Je suis très bien, merci," he says properly.

Elijah repeats it back, better this time, smoother, and Lando thinks, not for the first time, that Elijah's a fairly decent mimic. For that reason, they've been practicing more spoken French than written up to this point.

"Bien," Lando approves. "The trick is to keep the words distinct while preserving the rhythm of the language, you see? Each word fully formed, yet leading into the next, rather than as in English, choppy blocks of sound, abrupt and unpleasant."

"English doesn't sound like that when you speak it," Elijah says candidly. He rubs at one eye with a half-closed hand, oddly child-like. His eyes are red and swollen, though Lando can't really tell if it's from being upset or if Elijah's hung over. Either is a distinct possibility with Elijah.

"Certainment," Lando agrees, smiling. "But I've years of rhythm behind my speaking habits, which bleeds over into any language I speak. You'll find, I think, that mastering another language will make you more comfortable, even with your native tongue, petit."

"Don't call me that," Elijah mutters, but he doesn't actually look upset. "Je suis très bien, merci," he repeats, nearly perfect this time.

"Bon, Elijah, parfait," Lando beams, and Elijah grins back.

"Merci beaucoup," he replies neatly, and imitates Julien's customary half-bow, albeit without standing up.

Lando scowls theatrically; Elijah snickers. "Mockery, petit, will get you nowhere good in life."

"And yet it remains so much fun," Elijah says, smooth and silky, glittery-eyed.

"Perhaps," Lando allows, nearly expressionless. "Now write it out."

Elijah groans, but obediently drags the thick, coarse sheets of paper Lando's provided across the table top with his fingertips. "You're only making me write so _you_ can mock," he grumbles.

"Au contraire, petit, I am making you write because your ear is fair but your hand is atrocious, and will only be improved upon with copious practice."

Elijah waggles his eyebrows at Lando. "That sounds dirty," he says.

"Only to dégoûtant occupé American boys endeavoring to avoid writing lessons," Lando assures him. "Less talk, more writing."

Elijah mutters under his breath, but hunches obediently over the paper.

Lando isn't surprised (but he is amused as hell) to see that the first words Elijah manages in his straggling, back slanting hand are: _dégoûtant occupé_.

It's difficult, _really_ difficult, to write the words down. Elijah has always thought of himself as a fair hand at reading and writing-- his mother had insisted, after all, and he likes to think he got a little of her gift for words, if not her refinement. But French is another matter, all cursed strange accent marks in strange places and conjugations, and he'd really like to crumple the paper up and say to hell with it.

But Julien is watching him, and it hasn't escaped Elijah's attention that something is shifting inside him. He can't quite put his finger on it just yet, tells himself that it's only because Julien is _interesting_ , a flash of something darkly vibrant in this dust-gray town, even as he suspects it might just be something more than that. Whatever the reason, though, Elijah wants to avoid the slight tightening of Julien's mouth that shows disappointment, or disapproval, or both.

He's not entirely sure, but he thinks _dégoûtant occupé_ could roughly be translated as dirty-minded, and Elijah can't argue with that. Wouldn't try, because he knows there's no way in hell that he could keep a straight face with that lie, especially looking at Julien.

Elijah's never seen skin like Julien's. It's polished and golden, ridiculously fine, more suited to a woman than the dangerous man he knows Julien to be. Elijah's wondered, more than once, if the skin is the same shade all over, or if the gold fades into paler tones along the sharp cut of Julien's hips, like the small silk runner his mother kept on her bureau. All the way from China, she'd said with a smile, touching it, loving it. Bamboo embroidered on a field the color of watery straw. She'd never said where she'd got it, and Elijah had never asked.

A sudden exhalation from Julien that could be impatience brings Elijah back from his reverie, and he bites his lip, schoolboy pencil to paper again. _Comme la soie doré_.

"Intéresser," Lando says, dipping slightly from over Elijah's shoulder to examine what he's written. Fairly good, actually, at least demonstrating the ability to string together a coherent phrase not previously demonstrated for Elijah by Lando, and he clasps a hand on Elijah's shoulder.

"Well put together," he concedes. Elijah shifts under Lando's hand, perhaps uncomfortable with Lando's physical gesture. Lando does his best not to touch Elijah, for the most part. Too many people touch him as it is, to Lando's way of thinking. The boy needs someone in his life that expects nothing from him, no recompense, no return on their investment. Lando removes his hand at once and circles around behind Elijah's chair to take a seat beside him. "An excellent effort, Elijah. Now look at it and tell me what's wrong with it."

"What's wrong with it?" Elijah demands, immediately defensive, and Lando bites back a sigh.

"Oui," Lando says steadily, and catches Elijah's gaze. "As with any new endeavor, formulating your own thoughts into another language is rife with complications, Elijah. That you're already doing so is a testament to your determination to learn, but there are bound to be mistakes in early attempts." Elijah looks faintly sulky about it, but he nods. "Stop sulking at me, petit, it is unseemly. Why are you so surly this afternoon?"

 _Damn,_ Elijah thinks. Not at all what he'd wanted to show Julien, especially with no good way of explaining matters to him. What Julien has taken for a general sulkiness is nothing more than Elijah being his own worst critic-- and considering how vociferous some of his critics are, that's saying something. He just wants to do his best, and not disappoint Julien.

Some part of him whispers that he's hardly likely to disappoint Julien, because this doesn't really _matter_ to Julien, and that thought only makes his scowl deepen.

"I just...nothing." Elijah makes a concerted effort at a smile, willing his face to cooperate. Hopes that it doesn't look false, because next Julien might decide this whole business is a waste of time, depriving Elijah of his company, and that just won't do. "Want to get it right, 's all."

Julien nods at the small truth, and if he thinks there's more to it than that, Elijah can't tell-- is reminded again that Julien is the expert poker player. "Very well, then, petit,"-- and this time the word catches at Elijah, catches him in his throat; it isn't something he'd tolerate from anyone else, but on Julien's lips it's almost like an endearment. The closest Elijah knows he's likely to come to one, and that's enough to make him shiver and grip the pencil tighter. "Look at it and tell me what is wrong."

Elijah obeys this time, brow furrowing in concentration now. He knows _comme_ is right, easy enough, and he's pretty sure that _soie_ is feminine. It would have to be, wouldn't it? Silk isn't a thing for men. No, silk is women's skin and the slick falls of their hair.

Except Elijah thinks perhaps silk is a thing for Julien, and it's there, suddenly, fully, the ache of want, of wanting to _find out_ even as he suspects and dreads that such a thing will never happen. It makes the seconds tick by in a haze, and Elijah can feel Julien watching him, waiting for him to speak, and at last he takes a deep breath and settles on _doré._

"Doré should be feminine," Elijah states, and looks up at Julien to see if this is right.

 _An honest enough mistake,_ Elijah thinks. After all, what is Julien if not golden?

Lando gives Elijah Julien's best smile, tempering it a bit to convey approval that is a touch more platonic than the one that feels more natural and normal to him. "Exactement," he says, and gives Elijah a nod, curbing the impulse to give him another squeeze to the shoulder. "Now let me hear you say it."

"Comme la soie dorée," Elijah repeats obediently, with good rhythm and a reasonable attempt at a decent accent. He smiles at Lando as he says it, and it lightens his eyes considerably, takes some of the weight and age out of those enormous eyes, giving him more the look of his actual age.

"Tout à fait," Lando smiles, and Elijah's grin widens and his cheeks go slightly pink, and now he looks exactly his age. Lando can't help grinning a little himself in the face of Elijah's open and obvious pleasure. Lando is more certain than ever that Elijah _needs_ this, needs something that he can be good at that has nothing to do with anything but his own wits and determination, something that has nothing to do with his body or his mother or with Harry Sinclair.

He turns his mind deliberately away from that -- he's promised himself that he'll never talk about Sinclair to Elijah, as there is simply no way to do it safely or kindly -- and casts around for something else, something he'd had trouble with when he'd been picking up the idiosyncrasies of the language from Julianne and Jean, before Lando had understood that knowing the language and being _fluent_ in conversational French were two entirely different things. "This one will be more difficult. Just write it out as you hear it, and tell me what you think it means, oui?"

"D'accord," Elijah agrees, and smirks a little at Lando, clearly pleased with himself.

"Très bien, âne fute," Lando smirks. "Now listen: Je crois que les choses sont claires quand même."

It's probably wrong to be amused at the look of dismay on Elijah's face.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , Elijah rages silently at himself. He should have studied more last night, should have hidden himself away from Harry to pore by candlelight over the tattered French schoolbook Julien had somehow procured for him, from God knows where. But he hadn't, had tucked it away underneath his bureau when Harry called him. Had felt, in fact, a strange and fleeting moment of shame, the words muddling together in his head only to be rapidly forgotten in the familiar confines of Harry's bed.

Now he's only understood perhaps a third of what Julien's said, and that's including très bien. It isn't just a matter of not wanting to disappoint Julien, although that's still there in spades; now Elijah has the faint sense that Julien is mocking him, and it sets his teeth on a bitter edge.

"Je ne comprends pas," Elijah says, unable to keep the sharpness from his voice as his hand clenches so tight that the pencil snaps.

Lando doesn't frown -- Elijah reacts to any and all disapproval with immediate defensiveness, and once they start down that road they might as well quit for the day -- and keeps his voice mild and inflectionless. "I didn't ask you to understand it. I asked you to write it out. I don't expect you to be able to understand it yet. I just want to see if you can translate what you hear into written words. We'll work on understanding them later."

Elijah doesn't answer, but he looks down at the half a pencil in his hand. Lando sweeps the broken off end into his palm theatrically, performs a totally unnecessary but visually appealing flourish, and retrieves another from his coat just clumsily enough for Elijah to catch it. "Voila," Lando says, and presents the whole pencil to Elijah with a wink.

"I saw that," Elijah remarks, his tone slightly smug; as far as Lando is concerned, he'll take smug over bitter and defensive any day.

"Scie ce qui?" he asks, faux innocent, and Elijah smirks.

"I saw you try and fool me into thinking I caught you fumbling that trick," he says, eyes glittering.

Lando -- genuinely amused now -- arches one brow and pulls the chair beside Elijah away from the table, folding into it with Julien's customary graceful sprawl. "Oui?" he asks.

"Oui," Elijah confirms solemnly, but his eyes are bright and amused rather than angry.

Lando is glad to see it. He knows Elijah has a sense of humor; Lando just hasn't seen it much lately, and has never seen Elijah amused at his own expense. Lando thinks it's a good sign.

"A manipulative bastard like you could probably make a decent living playing poker," Elijah muses, deadpan.

Lando smiles wryly. "I might at that," he admits. "Unfortunately my talents don't seem to extend to manipulating stubborn young men into minding their lessons."

He arches both brows in question; better to let Elijah decide if he wants to continue. Lessons like this are pointless if the student isn't interested in learning, after all.

As quickly as the shame and anger had bloomed, they evaporate now. Elijah senses that Julien wasn't mocking him after all, and he knows that _stubborn_ is a fair enough charge. Certainly his mother had said it often enough, and he'd given her cause. It's sometimes made things difficult for Elijah, but it also gives him an advantage. _Like a dog with a bone,_ Deborah had said, and Elijah thinks that maybe that isn't such a bad thing after all. If he keeps gnawing on this, he's going to get somewhere.

He smiles back at Julien. "Oh, I bet you could." Julien's smile doesn't change, but Elijah catches the tiniest flash of something in his eyes that reins him in, draws him up sharp from the edge of dangerous territory. On the one hand, Elijah would really like to get a little closer to that cliff, have a look-see at what's on the other side-- or down the chasm. But that might cost the French lessons, which is all he has of Julien right now.

All he has, right now, of anything. "Say it again, please," Elijah asks, and now he's serious, ready for Julien to fire away, his senses straining already for every nuanced syllable.

"Very well," Julien says. "Je crois que les choses sont claires quand même." The words might be coming out a little slower, or it might just be that he's listening so closely that it seems that way. Either way, Elijah catches _je_ and _sont_ this time for certain. The others he isn't sure of, but on the paper he writes:

 _Je croit que le shows sont clear con mem._

It looks wrong to him, and he's pretty sure it _is_ wrong. But that isn't the point, after all. He's just listening. To Julien.

And as long as Julien wants to keep talking, that's fine with Elijah.

"Bien," Lando says, and means it. It's more than Lando had expected him to catch. "The lesson here is in understanding what combinations of letters usually form what sounds," he tells Elijah, who is looking at him with what seems to be honest concentration now. There's no sign of the glimmer in his eyes that may or may not have been subtle flirtation, and Lando decides he's imagining things. He plucks the pencil from Elijah's fingers and underlines _Je, que, and sont._ "These are correct. You recognize them because even in rudimentary French, they are oft-used, frequently repeated, oui?"

"Oui," Elijah agrees, smiling faintly.

"French is harder than English; we like to drop letters, en particulier the 's' and the 't' on the ends of certain words. It is why, I think, you ended _crois_ with a 't.'" He taps the pencil tip on the letter in question. "You recognize already, Elijah, the pattern, which is very, very good indeed. In this case, it's the dropped 's' rather than 't' but the principle is the same. The sound doesn't exist in the spoken word, yet appears in the written, and this is something you already recognize about the language."

He turns and smiles at Elijah, and Elijah is looking back, apparently too startled to smile just yet. "It is progrès, petit."

Slowly, like breaking clouds, Elijah smiles back. Satisfied, Lando hooks his foot around the leg of his chair and drags it closer to Elijah's and sits down.

"Now, the rest, you see..." He writes it out quickly below Elijah's nearly-phonetic translation. "I confess, this last, quand même, is almost unfair to you. It is one of those phrases that mean different things, depending on how it is said and where it is positioned in a sentence. Literally, it could be translated as 'nevertheless' but often it's used to transform a spoken sentence into a question or an exclamation." He looks over at Elijah to be sure he's paying attention, and Elijah's gaze is bright and focused on Lando, but not exactly on his face.

It looks like Elijah's looking at his _neck_.

For a moment, he doesn't say anything, just watches Elijah stare at his neck, frowning slightly.

Elijah knows it really isn't the wisest course right now-- Julien is speaking, and he's supposed to _pay attention_ , but somehow the happiness that suffused through him when Julien complimented him has _shifted_ , shifted and focused on the warm pulse that beats on Julien's neck. Elijah thinks of what it would be like-- folded underneath Julien-- kissing and licking at that salt-sweet pulse while Julien moaned, _petit, petit_. The world blotted out by golden skin as a new and perfect sky.

Elijah's cock throbs awake at the thought, but the suddenly too-tight confines of his denims acts as a glass of cold water in his face. He snaps back, and Julien isn't moaning, he's frowning, a thin line etched between those inscrutable dark eyes. Elijah's brain scurries like a startled rabbit, chasing the tail of the conversation. Catches it, and smiles brightly.

"Like qu'est ce que? Transforming things into questions, that is." Elijah's got questions, oh yes. The one foremost in his mind is whether Julien noticed, and if so...but following that particular trail will only lead to more problems right now. _Focus now. Daydream later._

 __"Oui," Lando says, and nods slowly. He's beyond certain, though, what Elijah had been looking at. He leans back slightly in his chair and regards him -- something in Elijah's face, something that rings false, makes Lando sure that Elijah is deliberately hiding from him -- for a long moment, undecided.

In the end, he decides to let it go. Elijah is what he is, what his life up to this point has made him, and seeking to change that with blatant questions and heavy-handed advice would not only be pointless, but potentially destructive. It's better, Lando thinks, to ignore whatever schoolboy fascination Elijah's battling, and be a good friend to him, an understanding friend.

But he can't quite let Elijah's lapse go, because he _is_ trying to teach him something, so he says, "You have a knack for languages, petit, and you're clearly very smart, but I grow weary of battling for your attention. Perhaps we will stop for today?" He keeps his voice even, not accusing in the slightest, and arches his brows, making it clear that he's giving the choice to Elijah.

Once again, Elijah picks out the best words-- _petit, very smart_ \-- and takes a little surreptitious pleasure in them. The rest of what Julien said isn't as promising, but Elijah's good at making do.

He doesn't hear any recrimination from Julien, although Elijah knows he must be frustrated. It's something Elijah's noticed about Julien, something that could easily be explained as the impenetrable mask of the poker player; but Elijah senses there's something else. He's being patient, Elijah can see that, and since Elijah doesn't want to become as appealing to Julien as day-old fish, he does something unusual.

He quits while he's ahead.

"Maybe you're right," Elijah says, giving Julien a small smile, "I'm a mite tired right now." It isn't a lie-- Harry had kept him up far too late last night, but Elijah doesn't want to think about that now. Instead, he stretches and stands up, thinking about a hot bath and his French textbook. Next time, he'll surprise Julien. "Thank you for the lesson."

Lando stands as well, and when he smiles, he means it completely. "Petit, you are welcome." He resists the urge to ruffle Elijah's hair. Lando remembers being Elijah's age; hair-ruffling is absolutely unforgivable. "You did well." He gathers the sheets of parchment and the pencil, presses them into Elijah's hands. "Practice, Elijah. You have a skill with languages. Hone it. You can never tell when such may be important."

Elijah gives him a look that's half flushed pleasure and half doubtful, but he takes the paper, though he looks at it worriedly, pale brow crumpled into something near dismay.

 _Sinclair,_ Lando thinks, and is almost sure he is right. Elijah wouldn't want Sinclair to see any of this. Harry Sinclair is just the sort of man to mock Elijah viciously for anything he perceives as a weakness, and this sort of education would definitely be deemed frivolous by Sinclair.

"Ah, wait," Lando says. "I have something for you. I'd forgotten."

He hadn't, not really, but he sprints upstairs anyhow, taking them two at a time to leave Elijah standing, staring after him in bemusement. He rifles through his saddlebags until he locates what he's thinking of, a leather folio such as certain businessmen use, which Lando had purchased for no reason other than he had simply admired them. There is paper inside, and of far better quality than that which Lando had found for Elijah to practice on. This paper is smooth and pale and expensive. The first several sheets of it are documents that Lando must keep, and he rolls those into a scroll and slips them back into his saddlebags.

He rifles through it quickly to be sure the rest of the sheets are blank, and then closes it with the small metal clasp. It doesn't have a lock, but a thing like this, at least, will be easier for Elijah to conceal than numerous loose sheets of paper, under his mattress or in a bureau.

He takes it back downstairs, where he opens it and shows it to Elijah. "With this, you will be able to keep your lessons all together, oui? And away from the eyes of those you do not wish to share them with."

Elijah blinks, staring at the beautiful thing in Julien's beautiful hands. The leather looks to be hand-tooled, the paper inside clearly no less costly. It is a princely gift, but that isn't what's making Elijah's heart skip a beat and his head swim.

No, it's that no one besides his mother has ever given Elijah anything without expecting something in return. And yet, here is Julien, offering something of far more worth than gold, and doing it as if it were nothing. As if it were easy.

Elijah doesn't remember when giving was easy, and he's ashamed at how easy it is to reach out and take. His fingers close over the smooth leather even as his throat closes up. _No, goddamnit it. Don't you dare cry. Don't you fucking dare._

"Thank you," Elijah manages, though the words come out as a strangled whisper. He can't look at Julien when he says it, because if he does he'll lose what little self-control he's clinging to, and he'd sooner die.

There's a lot Elijah's got to think about-- Julien's obvious understanding of Sinclair is at the top of the list-- but that's for later. For now, he clutches the folio to his chest and turns to go.

"Thank you," he says again over his shoulder, louder this time. From the corner of his eye he sees Julien nod, the late afternoon light filtering around his frame.

 _Comme la soie dorée._


	4. Afterglow: Harry, Elijah, Yuma, February, 1879

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v97/jen_catt/west/?action=view&current=westlijah.jpg)

 

 

  
Elijah feels really fucking good.

It's nothing new, the languor of limbs, the drowsy pound of his pulse in his ears, the tingle of sleep in his eyes. He's always found the mattress too plump, but when he can rest on it like this, nude and sated, fed and fucked and a little drunk, he doesn't mind it at all. The pillow cradles his head like one of the girls' arms, the sheets just as soft. The fire is crackling nearby, its heat crisp against Elijah's shoulder, his chest, his face.

There's another warmth nearby, along his back, and Harry's bodyheat is comforting too, in a way that keeps Elijah's body from being completely loose. The smell of cigar is pushing him closer to slumber, but he makes a conscious effort to stay awake, skirting the in-between.

He'll go to sleep when Harry does, out of habit.

Elijah smells like whisky, and earlier his mouth had tasted like it too. He's been at Cate's, probably playing cards and making messes for Harry to clean up, although likely nothing as bad as last week's little fistfight, which Harry had only barely managed to keep him out jail for. Harry probably ought to warn Elijah that he isn't going to clean up his careless messes forever, but he doesn't bother. He probably will, actually, and it wouldn't matter even if he really didn't intend to. Elijah is just Elijah, and when the kid gets itchy, he acts without thinking. He'd do it whether he thought he could count on Harry to bail him out or not, so it's pointless to threaten him.

Harry hadn't been all that different when he was that age. And Elijah with his back up, all bristling with liquor and indignation, has its own charms.

He puffs contentedly on his cigar, and absently traces Elijah's shoulder with the fingertips of his other hand. Elijah doesn't precisely tense; it's more like he tightens a little, winds up. "Mmm?" he says, vaguely questioning, a sleepy hum.

Harry doesn't actually have anything to say -- the urge to touch had simply been there, so he'd done it -- but the smell of whisky reminds him of Cate's, and Cate's reminds him of La Fleur, and La Fleur reminds him of the tournament last month, and before he knows it, he's speaking. "You have a good time at Cate's tonight?"

"Mmhmm," Elijah hums, and his body relaxes back against Harry further. "Was alright," he slurs. "Piano player's nice to look at."

Harry smiles at the barely hidden prod at his ego, and ignores it. He knows things about the piano player -- Dominic -- that he very much doubts Elijah has any idea of, but that's neither here nor there. He slides his hand down Elijah's arm slowly, listening to Elijah's drowsy sigh.

"Was that French bastard there?" La Fleur has been hanging around since the tournament, much to Harry's aggravation. He doesn't usually stay in Yuma so long, off chasing down other card games, Harry surmises, and Harry isn't enjoying his extended visit at all. He's got a mind to pay Cate a visit, see how things lie with her, and things like that go far more smoothly when that son of a bitch isn't around.

Elijah's eyes flutter open again, gaze settling on the translucent curve of the flask of brandy on the sturdy bedside table. The fire is mirrored in the golden liquor and he squints at it, trying to pin down the sudden flick of something at Harry's obvious (though in no way new) dislike of Julien.

 _"Elijah, no. Not like that. Here, let me show you."_

 _The cards flutter flawlessly between Julien's fingers, their well-worn edges flitting over the bar's surface without touching down._

 _Elijah's fingers are slow and stupid but he watches the sleight of hand, wordlessly absorbing the way the bones in Julien's wrist shift under the skin. There's an old scar there, right under the dustier cuff of Julien's otherwise crisp white shirt. Elijah doesn't ask, but stares until Julien's voice draws his attention back up to his face again._

"Yeah," Elijah croaks, then clears his throat, shifting against the sheets. "He's still at Cate's."

Damn.

Harry stretches his arm and crushes his cigar out in the ashtray on the bed table. Elijah settles back against him, all warm, smooth skin, and Harry turns onto his side and slides his arm around the kid, stroking along the smooth skin of his belly, more to distract himself from his aggravation than anything else.

He's paid to have Julien La Fleur killed twice.

No one knows that, of course. At least he assumes La Fleur doesn't know it, since he hasn't shown up on Harry's doorstep with those goddamned knives. He can't be certain, of course. He hasn't heard back from the first man he'd hired, and he knows the other pair had turned up dead in Phoenix. Shot, though. Not sliced up, and he doesn't know what to make of that. He's never seen the Frenchman with a gun, and rumor says he doesn't know how to use one.

Not that it's that hard.

Still. He'd give a hell of a lot to get that bastard out of Yuma and out of his hair. Away from Cate.

Elijah shifts slightly. His breathing is slowing down, but he isn't relaxed enough against Harry to be actually asleep yet. Elijah seems to get along with La Fleur fairly well, now that Harry thinks on it. Plays cards with him at Cate's sometimes, according to some of Harry's boys. He looks at Elijah thoughtfully, considering the possibility that Elijah's sleeping with La Fleur. It wouldn't precisely surprise him. Elijah likes men like La Fleur. Showy men, and a little dangerous.

He knows Elijah isn't what you could call the faithful type. Not that Harry has ever asked him to be. It doesn't especially bother him, mostly. Elijah's just that kind of boy. Anyone with eyes would want him, and Elijah probably doesn't say no very often.

He has to admit, though, that the idea of him messing around with La Fleur irritates Harry. Elijah knows Harry doesn't like that arrogant frog. Surely Elijah's a little wiser than that.

He thinks about last week's fistfight.

Okay, probably not.

"How well do you know him?" he asks, more curious than angry, at least for the moment. After all, there's the chance of some good coming out of it, if it's happening at all. If Harry plays his cards right.

Elijah works hard at keeping his breathing long and deep under the idle slide of Harry's hand on him, and he is so focused on the task he nearly misses the question, only realizes it was one when Harry stops talking and the silence suddenly begs to be filled.

The words play again in his head like an echo and he listens to them this time, shifting his hips away from Harry's touch.

"My mother knew him. I know him enough, I suppose." Even through the haze of sleep, sex and whiskey, Elijah can tell he's stepping into uncertain territory, and it's with deliberate phrasing that he adds, "He's a good card player."

He knows that already, he's played the bastard, lost to him not a month before, which Elijah is perfectly aware of. He squashes the urge to be snide, though. There are more important things to think about right now. Whether or not Elijah has screwed him -- he thinks not, now, but he wouldn't bet the bank on it -- Elijah knows him, gets along with him, which is more than Harry or anyone else he knows does.

It's an opportunity. Or it could be. He considers Elijah's pale shoulder and neck while he thinks about it, wonders why it hadn't ever occurred to him before. After all, Elijah does lots of things for him. Runs messages, collects rents occasionally, if Harry doesn't think muscle will be required for the collection. Harry has even let him ride with the boys, when his presence wouldn't be disruptive or lead to Elijah witnessing things that aren't his business.

Kid has been around for years, and obviously isn't going anywhere. He doesn't work for Harry the way that most do, but in another sense, he does. In another sense, in fact, Harry practically owns him, which suits him just fine. Seems to suit Elijah, too. Leastways, he's never complained about it. Not that Harry expects him to. Not that Harry would put up with Elijah's shit, if he did.

And Elijah has a way of getting under people's skin, getting through their guard. Part of it is just the way the kid looks, with that pretty face and those big eyes. He just _looks_ like a nice kid, even if he doesn't act it. People forgive and forget when Elijah raises hell, because Elijah knows how to play up his youth and his beauty. Women fawn over him and men either want him, or want to be his father. Either way, it works for Elijah. Gets him what he wants or what he needs.

It could work for Harry, too, whichever of those things might tickle La Fleur's fancy

"You should get to know him better," he says. "Find out about him. Get... close."

He doesn't bother to elaborate on what he means. In spite of the spectacularly stupid things he occasionally does, Elijah is a smart kid, canny and crafty. Harry doesn't doubt for a second that he'll understand.

Elijah stiffens, and he wanted to keep that subtle too but it's happened without his notice, and he conceals it by turning around and settling against Harry again, this time facing him.

He can't quite look at him, though, and busies a hand tracing the smooth-hard lines of Harry's chest. Harry's eyes are burning holes in Elijah's skin, but it's nothing new, nothing Elijah can't spin his way or, failing that, ignore.

"Yeah. Alright."

Hopes Harry is deep enough into his own machinations to ignore the quiver in his response, the echo of something rending. A familiar feeling.

 _The place had all but emptied, with the occasional girl working on a tough sale by the hearth. Julien's stool skittered on the floor, making the bartender gaze disinterestedly at them before slipping into the kitchen._

 _"I'm going to bed now, Elijah. Go home. I'll see you tomorrow, perhaps."_

 _It was the slip of Julien's eyes away from Elijah that had burned, and, to his horror, he'd submitted without hesitating, letting yet another slink away, if only for tonight. A compulsive crushing sense of loss was not something one got used to._

 _"Yeah. Okay."_

He doesn't miss the tension that shudders through the kid, like a brief storm, passing quickly.

Hrm.

He isn't sure what to make of Elijah's agreement as compared to that little quiver of tension. Elijah isn't subtle. Not usually. Everything he thinks, everything he feels, is normally right there on his face. Right now his eyes are closed though, his face peaceful, as if he's about to drop off into sleep at any moment. He's pawing lazily at Harry's chest, hand warm and soft.

He could press. Elijah isn't hard to press, and he could probably find out exactly what's going on in his pretty little head.

He chooses not to.

The last time he'd done that, he'd ended up roped into a conversation on whether or not Harry had been Elijah's mother's friend, something interminable that had involved a lot of Elijah staring into Harry's face, as if trying to find something that wasn't there. It's not something Harry's particularly anxious to repeat.

And Elijah's going to do what he wants, so what does it matter?

"Just find out what you can about him." he says, and curls a hand around Elijah's hip, stroking idly at warm, smooth skin, feeling his own body heat a little at the feel of it. He rolls forward slightly, trapping Elijah with his shoulder and tracing his hand upward, across Elijah's chest. "You can do that."

Elijah nods evenly and stops moving, opening calm eyes that betray nothing of the warring emotions constricting his lungs. Harry's hand is lingering over the lines of Elijah's chest, where work and an obstinate need to look less childish have begun cutting lean muscles over stomach, chest and shoulders. Elijah's lips part on a small rush of breath and his hips press upward mechanically, his semi-hard cock jumping slightly against Harry's belly when Harry's fingers circle a nipple idly.

The intent look on Harry's face reminds Elijah of the transaction currently underway, and he murmurs, "I can do that." It's always been easy to say the words, to agree to do anything Harry says, and it's easy now too, he supposes, even if Elijah can think of a hundred reasons to say no, just this once. The arousal (its reluctance as familiar as the thing itself) mixes with a slight feeling of panic he's thankfully able to bury, to smooth out.

Elijah looks sleepy and unconcerned, and Harry relaxes a little, letting himself settle back into the soft warmth of the feather mattress. Elijah isn't stupid, not by a long shot. He'll end up doing exactly what Harry wants him to do, just like always.

That's just the way things work, and Harry likes that just fine.

For a few minutes, he lies there, silent and drifting, Elijah's body a warm bundle of angles against his side. Eventually, he begins to suspect that he won't be falling asleep without a little relief from the low-key buzz in his groin, and he supposes he shouldn't have let himself touch Elijah after he'd had him once tonight, because it always ends up this way. Once he touches the kid, he's not really satisfied until he's spent himself.

Elijah jerks a little when Harry slides a hand around his shoulder, like he had been dozing. Doesn't matter. Elijah's always up for it. Harry pushes downward gently, without speaking, and after a few seconds, Elijah gets it.

Not a stupid kid. Not at all.


	5. Revelations: Billy, Cate, Lando, Yuma, February 1879

Cate puts a hand to the back of her hair as she comes down the stairs, an automatic gesture rather than any real concern for the arrangement of blond braids and silk flowers hanging on the nape of her neck. She’s aglow with the certainty that everything - from the fresh sheets on the beds to the unopened card decks on the tables to her own appearance – is exactly as she wants it, with only few hours left before tournament play officially begins.

There’s already plenty of card-playing going on, at the regular tables in the back parlor. Some of the men are tournament participants, just idling away their time before the real event; the others are too broke or too amateurish to play for high stakes, but they’re picking up what action they can on the margins of the tournament. Either way, they’re buying drinks and food and girls at top dollar, and Cate’s pulse skitters at the thought of the pile of coins and notes that will fill her cashbox by tonight.

In the front parlor, the tournament tables are unoccupied, though here and there a superstitious player has left his tobacco pouch or hat to mark the seat he must have if he’s to be lucky. Cate circles the room, needlessly checking that everything’s just so when she already knows it is.

Cate walks out to the side porch of the house, where there’s a tapped barrel of beer and a dozen bottles of whisky serving as entertainment for the dozen or so men waiting for the chance to break the seals on the card decks and really go to work. There’s a flurry of greetings, Cate nodding and smiling and offering her hand with genuine pleasure. She imagines a fox feels almost as kindly towards a henhouse as she does towards these men.

Cate’s attention is drawn by another newcomer making his way up the front steps. She turns, leaning her hip against the porch rail as she watches him.

He’s small in stature, several inches shorter than Cate herself, and slight of frame. But he’s hefting a saddle and two saddle bags on one shoulder with every appearance of ease, so there’s some wiry strength there that his build doesn’t betray. His clothes are plain but good, the kind worn by someone who lives in towns, but spends plenty of time on the rough trails that lead among them.

Cate moves towards the front steps.

He sees her, or rather he turns his head and lets her see him looking at her.

Remarkable eyes, Cate thinks at once: very clear, light, leaf green.

She pauses at the top of the steps, and waits for him to come to her.

"Good afternoon," she says, as if he’s been expected and anticipated. "I’m Cate; this is my house."

She extends her hand. There’s a tiny hesitation, the slightest possible narrowing of his eyes, the very tiniest turn of his head so that he’s looking at her obliquely. Then he puts out his own hand, and Cate’s amused to see that her palm and fingers are longer than his, though no wider. His grip is firm but brief.

"Good afternoon," he says, and there’s a turn to his accent that makes Cate’s smile less predatorily. "I’m Billy Boyd. It's not too late to buy my way into this poker tournament of yours, is it?"

"Not at all," Cate says. "Come inside, I’ll be happy to take your money."

She turns, leading the way through the open doorway towards the small back sitting room she uses as an office and inner sanctum.

She carries herself perfectly, this Cate, unhurried and confident and gracious in a professional way. As though she holds her charm in reserve, present and at the ready, but never doled out in excess. Billy follows her into the small room and seats himself with a murmur of thanks, grateful for her polished professionalism. It still takes him a more than trivial amount of energy and focus to master the social niceties that once came effortlessly. More often than not, he feels like a circus wild man, shaved and dressed in an ill-fitting suit and made to ride a unicycle while carrying heavy barbells and making charmingly deft conversation. He’s grown accustomed to it, and if his interactions remain somewhat effortful, he’s regained enough of his former prowess to be certain the effort will not show.

Still, he’s grateful for this woman’s expertise in her own role, as she sways gracefully over and seats herself at the desk. If she were too stiff, or too desperate, this would be far more difficult than it already is. If she were familiar, it would be impossible. He’ll already be facing old opponents at this tournament, and playing for stakes he hasn’t touched in years. Revisiting the tables he’d played at before would be too much. This tournament, his first in years, will be the true test of his ability, and he prefers not to have the deck stacked against him.

Cate shifts once to settle her skirts in the chair, dips her pen in an inkwell, and smiles winningly. "Let’s take care of the formalities first, shall we?" she asks. Billy dusts off a genteel smile and inclines his head, slightly relieved. Her opening move is a testament to both their skills: his ability to project an air of competence, and her judgment that an experienced player need not be eased into parting with his fee.

"Boyd with a Y, is it? And Billy rather than William?" He murmurs assent, impressed. Literacy is not common in these parts, particularly not among women. "And will you be staying with us?"

"If I may," he replies. "A simple room will suit me just fine." From the looks of the place, "simple" is likely the majority of the rooms. The combination of plain pine floors and tasteful, but subtly worn furniture suggests that Cate’s means do not yet match her abilities and aspirations. He imagines this tournament, and the general alliance with McKellan, is meant to rectify that.

"I’m certain we can see that you’re quite comfortable," she offers, letting the words carry the innuendo without unneeded help from her tone. "And you’re aware of the rules, the game, and the stakes?"

"Yes, ma’am." Without prompting, he slides the thick wallet out of his coat and lays the bills one by one on the table. He stacks them silently, without fumble or show, and discreetly watches Cate’s lips move as she counts along. When all five stacks of ten hundreds are laid neatly, she sweeps them deftly up in one hand and taps the stack on the desk. As if on cue, a massive Lobo in a well-tailored suit materializes in the doorway.

"This is Lawrence," Cate tells Billy casually as the man accepts the sheaf of bills, bows, and heads back through the doors and away from the main room. "He makes sure the honesty and security of my tables are not compromised." Billy grins in appreciation of this promise-turned-warning, and she smiles charmingly back, presses her fingers against the desktop, and rises elegantly to her feet. "Now, Mr. Boyd, may I offer you a drink?"

There's a slight hesitation, as if Boyd doesn't actually know the answer to Cate's question, but then he nods decisively.

"Yes, thank you."

Cate sweeps her skirts around her and, by dint of her smile and the bend of her body, she ushers him ahead of her out of the door. In the hall she slips easily by him, leading the way into the back parlor. She nods pleasantly at the players already ensconced there, but doesn't offer introductions. The house is sheltering a motley assortment of men; Cate does not intend to impose unwelcome acquaintances on anyone.

"Bourbon? It's quite a good one, I believe," she says, indicating a chair for Boyd while she busies herself with glass and decanter.

"Thank you," Boyd says, seating himself.

There's something about him that makes Cate – not wary, exactly, rather – attentive. She's already certain that he won't be particularly profitable in terms of liquor or girls, but she's also sure she can count on him not to cause trouble at the tables.

She passes him his glass, and he inclines his head in thanks. Cate turns back to the bar and extracts a key from a wooden box.

"This is your room key," she says, presenting it. "Top of the stairs, the room nearest to you on your right. You can keep a bar tab running if you wish, also for food, baths, laundry … but I would ask you to pay the girls at the time they look after you, if you'd be so kind."

Boyd nods, and pockets the key. His gaze slides towards the nearest table in play. Cate waits for a second or two, trying to ascertain if he wants her to stay and socialize a little, or if he'd prefer to be left to himself.

"So, we play in here," he says, and it almost sounds like he's talking to himself.

"Oh. No," Cate says pleasantly. "The tournament tables are in the front parlor. It's more comfortable. Would you care to see?"

"Very much," Boyd says, his interest apparently sparked. He stands, cradling his glass between both hands.

Cate walks him through to the other room, and she can't help smiling in genuine amusement at Boyd's eyebrows hitching and his droll little mouth pressing tight in surprise when he sees the tables with their green baize cloths, sealed packs of cards, and perfectly stacked piles of chips at each place.

"I hope this is adequate," Cate says, and as if to complete her pleasure, Liv chooses this moment to walk through from the hallway, looking stunningly beautiful with her hair half-loose down her back like a bride and wearing a silk dress the color of blood.

 _Adequate_ would be one word for it. _Meticulous_ is another. A third, which Bill will decline to share with anyone (not that anyone’s likely to ask him for it) is _intimidating_. He hasn’t been on the same premises as a High Stakes tournament, let alone played one, since before Urban caught up to him. His avoidance has been deliberate - he refused to face his old opponents, either across the table or across the saloon, while still less than what he’d been. He’s heard a few of the idle rumors that eddied outward in his absence (his personal favorite was that he’d holed up down south in a Mexican bordello worked solely by boys), but no one seems to know of his time in the Marshall’s jail. A blessing, that, and not a small one. His control is outwardly steady, but still more tenuous than he’d like, and he’s not sure he could face a man who could guess the scars he wears. And the sight of this well-lit room, with its precisely spaced tables and uniformly arranged chips, is enough to make him glad of the bourbon he’s accepted, which he now casually but swiftly downs.

After earning the buy-in over months at smaller tables, Billy knows he can still play well enough to be here. What he’s no longer sure of is if he can still play well enough to win. If he loses ... there’s no place for a High Stakes champion who’s lost his edge. He may still make a living at the smaller tables, but he’ll never get respect from his opponents again. And Billy would rather spend the rest of his life as a ranch hand than as a liquor-cushioned has-been who makes his money submitting to the contempt and amusement in lesser player’s eyes.

He doesn’t say any of this to Cate, of course. (He finds himself wondering what her surname is - not out of nosiness, but because something in her manner makes it hard for him to think of her as a woman, much less a whore, and using her given name feels disrespectful and inappropriately familiar.) None of these thoughts even threaten to break surface. He knows he looks like any other experienced player, slightly charged with anticipation, but weighing the setting with calculation and not nervousness. Instead, he allows his eyes to travel the room, taking in the brightly polished glass lamps, the clean and coyly flirtatious girls (for whom he has only objective appreciation, but no need to mention that), and the small, bluntly attractive man playing piano (on whom he lets his eyes pause, but only for a moment).

“Ma’am, you run an impeccable establishment,” he says, setting the empty glass casually down on gleaming wooden table. Her smile deepens slightly, eyes warming with genuine pleasure at the compliment. “How long has it been under your guidance?”

Cate will relive these moments over and over, in the hours and days and weeks that follow. At first, she will regard them as the lightening flash, the thunderclap that breaks her life in two. Later, she will understand that the storm passes close, but does not in fact strike her. She is given just the sliver of mercy it takes to avert disaster.

The first grain of that mercy is Boyd's question.

"Almost five years," Cate says in answer, and her smile is perfectly composed, but something inside her draws a little deeper into its habitual armor.

 _"I've forty dollars, is that enough for the stage?" Cate says, almost thrusting the crumpled bills at the driver._

 _"Well, where do you wanna go ma'am?" he asks, frowning in anxious perplexity at this woman, beautifully dressed but breathless and fever-eyed, without so much as hat on her head on a night that's blowing rain and threatening sleet._

 _"Where does the stage go?"_

 _"Yuma, end of the line."_

 _"Then that's where I'm going, if forty dollars will get me there."_

"But you're not from these parts, I think," Boyd says with a mild smile.

"No. I'm from San Francisco originally," Cate says.

 _From there to the red-raw smash of his fist is less than a heartbeat. Customer, husband, father – Cate has learnt control from men with none._

She looks up, some movement of the light and shadows on the main staircase drawing her gaze over and past Boyd's shoulder.

Lando, dressed in Julien's most peacock finery with his curls arranged in the kind of artful disorder that betrays Liv's hand, is slouching down the stairs with every appearance of dilettante boredom. Cate knows that's a shameless ruse, that Lando – that _Julien_ \- is prickling with anticipation of the tournament.

Cate feels the little warm kernel of affection and amusement spring to life somewhere far down beneath the icy defenses Boyd has so unwittingly stirred. In just a minute, Cate will thaw and smile and Julien - _Lando_ \- will come to her, coaxing and teasing and trying to make her blush in front of the newcomer.

But she isn't there yet. She's still frozen, hard. So when the blow falls, she doesn't flinch. She barely blinks.

Lando's freezes, the color draining out of his face and his eyes turning to blank glass. His body seems to turn to angles and jagged edges. He's not even looking at Cate.

He's looking at Boyd.

"What about you?" Cate asks Boyd, and her voice is brittle and glassine with cold charm. "Where did you start from?"

 _Got some nerve_ , Lando thinks jaggedly, and his hand goes up and rakes through Julien's curls, disordering them, pulling hard enough to make his eyes prickle. _Some bloody nerve, you murdering fuck, you ... some goddamned nerve ..._

But he is rooted to the spot, and the rage that wants to seize control of his voice - he bites down on his bottom lip hard, determined to be silent - is at odds with the sheer, shrieking fear that wants to seize control of his legs, neither of them able to act against the other.

He doesn't move, he _can't move_ , and he is as certain as he has ever been of anything that Bills will turn, that the straight line of his back will twist and Bills will turn, because that's the way things work with Bills, Bills _always, always, always_ has the advantage over Lando, and Bills will turn, and there will be violence, there will be pain and clinging, black madness, inescapable, perhaps inevitable after all these years, and he _can't move_ , he is undone the way that only Billy can undo him, and some high, tight sound of despair looses itself from his throat, barely audible, so faint it could be imagination, and there is a knife in his hand and his grip is so tight the skin of his knuckles will stretch and rip over the bones and it will only be the beginning of the blood.

It will only be the beginning of the end, or the end of the end, the end that Bills had brought him years ago, _before_ , in Texas, or later _here_ , the end of that, the correction of an oversight, the idle correction of the mistake that is Lando's life, and for a moment the knife seems simplest, seems like the most expedient way, the only way, not for Bills but for _him_ , for _Lando_ who is an uneasy ghost at best, and his own knife will be cleaner and swifter than anything Bills would offer him, he knows that, he _knows_.

But he is, as Cate says often ( _Cate_ , some faint part of him mourns, but he cannot, he ...) too stubborn to die, too mule-brained to submit easily to anything, and his hands shake with rage like wildfire, like the scorching, clean heat of the badlands, and he feels sick with the desire for Billy's blood, a lust deeper than anything he had once felt for Bills, once offered to Billy in innocence in the sultry west Texas night, he wants the heat of blood on his hands, the surprise on his face, and Lando could do it from here.

He wouldn't have to take a single step; the angle is perfect, the distance negligible, and Lando can taste it, taste blood on his tongue.

And it is that, as much as fear of Billy, that sends him silently back, back around the corner, up the stairs and into Cate's rooms where the warmly familiar smell of her that he _covets_ , that he _treasures_ , does nothing to bring him back to himself this time.

This time there is only the pounding blood in his ears, in his head, on his mouth where he's bitten through his tongue (as he throws everything together, heedless but comprehensive) and the understanding that there is nothing, there is nothing left, that he has lost it, lost Yuma and Cate, lost Dominic, that Billy has taken it all from him _again_ , and Lando

still

cannot kill him.

 _Fuck_ , Billy thinks, smiling politely as the conversational temperature drops about twenty-five degrees. _Misjudged that one._ Preoccupied or not, it still only takes a half-second review to confirm that yes, his initial question had indeed borne a passing resemblance to " _So, how long have you been a whore, then?_ " One of the few disadvantages of having little sexual interest in women is that he’ll occasionally foul himself by not considering the sexual interpretation of his words. He wishes he had another drink; not because he needs any more alcohol, but because it’d be convenient to have some excuse to occupy the awkward silence. Further evidence that he’s off his game, and he gives himself a nice mental shove.

Of course, then there’s her question, and Billy’s really not any more keen to give a thorough answer to it than she was. Rolling out what he hopes is a rueful, _sorry for being an idiot_ smile, he murmurs, "Nowhere as notable, I’m afraid. Texas."

“Mmm,” she replies with disinterest, giving him a rather unimpressed visual sweep before letting her eyes flicker off behind him again. It’s clear that there’s nothing he can do to salvage the situation and, being the lady that she is, Cate’s going to let him swing for his error rather than be so rude (or so forgiving) as to end the conversation. He opts instead to head her off at the pass.

"My apologies," he says warmly, and she looks sharply back at him, eyebrows raised. "I’m certain you have far more pressing matters to attend to."

Cate's good at this, God so good at this, but she can't begin to imagine what's showing in her eyes at this moment.

Billy. _Bills_.

She smiles, and even as the expression forms on her face she knows it's wrong, too slow, too smoldering, too secretive.

 _Bills ... please ... please don't ..._

"There's really nothing more important to me than the comfort of my guests," Cate says, tipping her chin down and aside a little, so that she's effectively looking up at Boyd from under the sweep of her eyelashes.

It's a maneuver she's always found devastating to men shorter than she is. It's a measure of the insanity sweeping through her that she flickers on the thought of having him, of letting him have her, if that will give her a particle of control over him. His hands are smaller and more delicately boned than hers, but she senses he has the fineness of steel – stronger than anything heavier or coarser.

There is the faintest flicker of reaction in Boyd's face and the tilt of his shoulders, but the calm with which he smiles and says,

"That's very gracious of you,"

tells Cate more than she wanted to know.

 _Bills please ... I'd never ... not to you, Bills, not to you ..._

Cate can feel the blood surging into her cheeks, fever hot, and she knows Lando would be ashamed of her lack of control.

 _Kill him._ The words etch themselves in red fire behind Cate's eyes. She knows what Boyd did to Lando, and Cate won't do less for Lando than he did for her.

"But I'm sure you're tired and you'd like to wash up after being on the road," she says, and the words drop liquid and perfectly smooth from her tongue, and she wonders if this is what it was like for Lando, if this was how he could speak with such composure to Adrien –

Boyd smiles and admits he could do with a bit of a rest, though it's clearly just a polite lie and an acceptance of her dismissal – he's spun tight in every muscle and sinew, and Cate can't begin to imagine what it would take to make him weary. He nods, and turns away, and Cate's right hand sinks into the folds of her skirts.

She carries a Smith & Wesson Schofield revolver in a canvas housewife under her skirt, and takes care to have the pocket slit in her skirts made generous enough to let her get to it without difficulty.

She has her hand under the stiff silk drapery and her fingers are closing around the always warm and faintly rough bone of the grip. For a second Boyd pauses, and turns his head very slightly, and Cate's heart stops in her chest. But then he seems to shrug off whatever it is that held him, and he starts up the stairs.

 _Bills ... please ... just let me ... let me die now Bills ... please ..._

Lando looked into Cate's eyes before he let the knife sink into Adrien's throat.

Cate looks up at Boyd, climbing he stairs. Sabine is coming down, and she flashes a hard bright smile at him. Liv moves past Cate, along the hallway and towards the back of the house.

Lando killed to protect them all, not just Cate. Lando killed to keep this place safe, these women ... Cate's gaze slides away from Boyd, to Dominic, sitting on the piano stool with Jewel hanging over him, both of them laughing.

Cate needs to look into Lando's eyes first.

She extracts her hand from her skirts and moves quietly to the back hallway, and then goes up the narrow private stairway to her own rooms.

Skin still pricking from the last exchange (and he feels like there was something he was missing, back there, something more off-kilter than just an ill-conceived question can account for, but he can’t quite put his finger on what), Billy nods respectfully to the girl as she passes him and climbs the last few stairs to the upper hall. He _does_ want to wash up, change into a cleaner set of clothing, maybe even lie down and soak in a little quiet before the tournament begins, but instead he finds himself standing at the door to his room, key halfway out of his pocket, staring intently into the hall’s malleable dimness.

There’s something that needs to happen first.

Slowly, he slides the key back into his pocket, turns, and moves further into the low light: careful steps that he finds himself absently counting ( _twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three_ ), the last turning to the left and leaving him squarely in front of a rough pine door, not discernibly different from the others that line this hallway. There are faint, unremarkable sounds coming from behind it -- the scuff and clink of spurred boot heels on the scarred wood floor, liquid splashing against glass or metal, boards creaking as a body settles onto the bed. Billy notes and discards these impressions, listening past them for any signs of what passed in this room before.

He hasn’t really let himself examine his determination to make the tables at Yuma. Not out of fear of any unknown answers, but because the answers are there and fully self-evident. Yuma is the first High Stakes tournament he could raise the money for, the first following a sufficient number of smaller tests that he could trust himself to play, and the first he could reach without any kind of excessive hurry. Yuma is also a marker, deceptively ordinary and not popularly decipherable, of the last place where William Boyd fell. The two years in Urban’s jail may have broken him, but it was the things that happened in this room that caused him to shatter, and though he’s reassembled the pieces, the whole they form is undeniably different than the shape they took before. If he cannot win this tournament, he will never play again. If he cannot face this room, he will be forever waiting for the old cracks to shudder apart and flatten him in the rubble.

 _Lando_ , he thinks, one hand pressed against the doorframe. _Lando_. But whatever power this room once had, it’s just a room now, and its former inhabitants have left no trace of themselves. Temporary, transient, just passing through. The walls do not bend, the lamps do not flicker, and the gaps and treacherous currents that he finally excised from his mind months ago make no threats of returning. He hears footsteps and long skirts whispering the smaller stairway to his right and, both relieved and disappointed, moves purposefully back down the hallway, unlocks his door, and slips inside the clean, unfamiliar, anonymous room.

Someone has laid his saddlebags at the foot of the bed and left him a pitcher of fresh-drawn water, the beaten metal beaded with condensation. He pours himself a glass and sits slowly on the edge of the neatly made bed. There are no ghosts to haunt him anymore, not here, not in his head. The memories of what he did are still clear and ready for the seeking, but they have lost their immediacy, their fever. In the slow, painstaking reassembly of himself, he has accepted what happened, accepted it in the way one accepts the unchangeable and undeniable. Though he still dreams of it, sometimes, those dreams come no more frequently than any others, and only at night. He is, apparently, whole. The water slides cool and crisply past his lips, and Billy closes his eyes, dedicates the taste of it to the lost and to the dead, and starts to prepare himself for the evening ahead of him.

Cate takes the turn of the landing at a quick walk and bundles her skirts carelessly in both hands as she hurries up the next flight to the small landing outside her rooms. Her thoughts dart from one possibility to another – that Lando is in a killing fury, and her difficulty will be to restrain him from walking back downstairs and murdering Boyd in full view of the household. That Lando will be coldly contained, willing to bide his time. She prefers this scenario; between them, they can contrive a way to do this safely and stealthily. There's another possibility, which Cate's thoughts won't even form completely, only touching the notion and then skittering away again.

That Lando will be ... afraid. Afraid in the way that Cate was of Adrien – numbingly, breakingly afraid, so that resistance is no longer even a possibility. Cate doesn't ever want to see Lando like that.

She pauses with her hand on the door.

If that's what she sees, then so be it. Whatever Lando is in this moment, Cate will accept.

She turns the doorknob and pushes the door open. The room is still except for the slow rise and fall of the curtain over the open window. Cate moves across the threshold, closing the door softly behind her.

"Lando. It's me," she says, but the intonation of her voice is utterly flat. She already knows.

She walks forward, her gaze sliding slowly over the places his things used to be: the small table where he left his deck of cards or the slim cloth-bound books he read. The chair back where – despite her complaints – he threw his coat and even his vest.

She crosses into the bedroom.

One of the top drawers of the bureau is not quite closed. Apart from that the room is quite orderly. Cate's always neat with her things; it's Lando's haphazard possessions that have always given the place its air of habitation. Cate goes to the bureau. Through the opening, she can see that the drawer is empty. Carefully she pressed it fully closed.

She looks at the neatly made bed, the sheets bearing the ghost creases of the previous night. She takes a single step in that direction, her stomach twisting with pain, but then she collects herself. She turns and goes back into the sitting room, stepping behind the couch and closing the window.

She goes back out, pulling the door shut behind her, and goes downstairs again.

"Liv," Cate says, meeting her in the hallway. "Ask Cora to change the sheets on my bed, would you?"

"Is something wrong?" Liv asks, half surprised and half wary.

"No. Just do it."

Cate moves on, leaving Liv frowning in confusion.  



	6. Reiterations: Billy, Dom, February 1879

Just as he remembered, the half-hour after the last hand is played goes by in a blur, all grousing and hand-shaking and rueful congratulations, the weaker players and a few shocked near-winners milling around in the corners, the more skilled and the more experienced buying each other drinks and rehashing the last eight months, the last ten hands. Most of the men he recognizes insist on cornering him for a minute or two, making empty conversation and alluding, with varying degrees of curiosity and innuendo, to his five years’ absence from the High Stakes circuit. Later, he’ll be able to replay the scene word for word, noting the unexpectedly heartfelt “Good to see you back, Billy” from Jacob Cullins and the smoldering faces of the four men whispering fiercely by the window. Now, however, the familiar-forgotten post-game blankness overtakes him, and it’s not until he slips out to the back parlor and drops onto an isolated barstool that it all starts to sink in.

He won. Jesus Christ almighty, he won.

Billy’s bones feel strangely light, like pipes with the water draining out of him, and it takes a moment for him to categorize the sensation as relief. Relief that despite these last harsh, barren years, despite everything, he hasn’t lost this one thing that made him who he was, that laid the groundwork for the first kind of power he’d ever had in his life. Relief that the balance and the control and the iron, stolen and absent for longer than he cares to think about, are his again, locked and bolted firmly into place. Relief that even here, pressed and tested under the roof where he’d once broken, he hadn’t faltered or budged.

And the money, goddammit, the money. Over a hundred thousand dollars, more than ten times over what he’s laid hands on in the three years since he left Urban’s jail, and every fucking cent of it clean. No more shoveling shit in saloon stables, no more stealing silver from assholes too drunk to lock their hotel doors after the whores left, no more of the grim and silent jobs he’d taken on nights in those first months after, too far gone to feel anything but the violence, when every gunshot or broken window was a way to break the silence in his head.

The bartender sets a double shot of whiskey down in front of him with a _thunk_ and a grinning, “For our champion, on the house.” Billy starts to decline but then stops himself, because really, why shouldn’t he? There’d be nothing stupider than riding off into the night with a hundred grand shoved into his saddlebags, and between McKellan’s backing and Cate’s massive Negro, no one will be fool enough to touch him while he’s still under this roof. Tomorrow, he can worry about how to safely get the money to a bank large enough to keep it (leave a chunk in Yuma, maybe, and then hire guards from McKellan to ride with him to Tucson, there’s another tournament not three months away down there). Tomorrow, he can reshuffle today’s faces in his head and mark the ones likely to come after him, decide the best route to take while waiting out the dry spell. Now, however, he’s beaten all comers, exorcised the last of the demons that lingered in his head and in this place, and he has fucking _earned_ this drink. The alcohol burns smooth and clean down the back of his throat, and as he closes his eyes to savor the taste, footsteps pad lightly to a stop behind him and an unfamiliar voice drawls pleasantly: “That was a pretty set of bluffs you made at the end, there.

 _Billy Boyd_.

Dominic rolls the name over and over in his mind, thinks about how it will feel weighing against his tongue. Among other things. He grins a little. One hundred thousand dollars. Surely he wouldn't mind parting with a wee bit of that.

Sharp face and soft voice and broad hands that Dominic would bet his week's earnings didn't know their way around a woman's body. There was something there, not just that he hadn't glanced once at Liv's shameless neckline or Jewel's lovely round hips. He had picked out a few other potential tricks during the tournament, all easier marks to be sure, plenty with enough money to rent him for a few hours, but none were as intriguing as Billy Boyd.

Billy glances at him now, licking the last of the whiskey from his upper lip. "Nah. Sometimes you just get the luck of the draw."

Dominic settles down on the stool next to him. He laughs, and Billy's red mouth twitches upward on one side. "And sometimes you get a shite hand and a stone face. S'called _skill_ , no shame in that." He gestures to Colin to being the bottle, leans just a little closer. "But you can't hide from me."

The whiskey simmering pleasantly in his gut, Billy turns a little and looks him over. Strangely handsome, Cate's piano player, body and features blunt-edged, with an air of having been slightly cobbled together. Balanced but unplanned, un-pretty almost to the point of homely, and yet nothing like. He accepts Billy's perusal unflinchingly, only the barest hint of a smile but enough to make his grey eyes go dark and wicked in the brown of his face. Their eye level is the same, Billy notes, as are their shoulders curving towards the bar.

No common professional, this man; not at all. If he had been, Billy would've noticed -- and dismissed -- him hours before now. Billy looks at him a bit longer, just because he can, before letting his gaze drift to the bottles lining the wall in front of them and taking a second, longer drink.

"I wasn't aware I was trying to," he murmurs with a small smile, and sets his empty glass down between them.

Still smiling, Billy tilts his head in an easy thanks and extends his right hand. "Billy," he says. The introduction's obviously unnecessary (at least on his part) and the handshake is too, but he's already anticipating he'll spend the next several hours taking Dominic's measure (in more ways than one), and he won't begrudge himself the chance to start now.

Dominic eyes Billy's hand for the briefest moment, lips quirked in amusement, before turning slightly and reaching out to meet it. Dominic's grip is firm, honest, mapped in interesting callouses and scars. Warm, too, or at least warmer than Billy's own. Holding Dominic's steady gaze, Billy is aware that the clasp of their hands feels like, not a formality, but the sealing of a deal they haven't even started to broker yet. Agreement, even with the terms still unspoken.

"It's a pleasure, Dominic," he says, and lets their palms brush casually together as he pulls his hand gently back. There's the slightest deepening of brown on those broad cheekbones, so faint that anyone in another line of work might've missed it, but Dominic only nods his head a little and affirms, "It is."

With that, Billy lets the moment end itself and slides the shotglass over to his left hand, leaning back slightly. The other man shifts subtly to mirror him, eyes flickering around the room in a light perusal of details. Easy as you like it, not the slightest push in his manner at all. "Do you play the tables?" Billy asks, fairly sure of the answer but still genuinely curious.

 _I didn't know that I was looking,_ he thinks, an odd half-echo of an earlier remark. And it's true; of the many possible ways for this night to end, this wasn't one that'd crossed his mind as he'd swung saddle and bags over his shoulder and prepared to climb Cate's steps. There's been little true human contact, these last years and months. Sex, yes, though not much of that either, and less than in those first dark spells after he tasted open air again. What there had been then had been harsh, rushed and anonymous, called on by the sudden surges of mindless action that had overrun him so often then. Several times he'd come out of one of those raw blank _pauses_ in a dark room or alley, breathless and snarling, hands refastening his trousers or still fisted in some stranger's hair. Maddened and sick for hours after from a taste in his mouth, the smell of unfamiliar sweat. Once he began the years-long task of reassembling himself, he kept away from the slightest hint of any offer, bone-tired as he was, cold at the thought of some hurried fumble and lacking a currency for any more meaningful exhange. Lately, the self-imposed ban had begun to lift, but there's been no one as personable, as _personal_ , as Dominic.

And he'd never really envisioned any part of this night as it's played out. Not Cate, her sharpness and her balance, or the room upstairs, only a blank door once more, or winning, and finding faculties once lost as surely fixed as if they'd never left him. And there's a rhythm here, these surprising turns and half-echous, and in these last years he's learned a greater appreciation for instinct than he'd had before them, learned that there are ways of finding truth beyond keen intellect.

So if this isn't a door he'd expected to find open, he'll walk through it anyway, and see what might wait on the other side.

Billy lets the stool twist slightly, turning so they're a few inches closer to facing, and tips his glass in response, weighing Dominic with a measuring look as he drinks.

"I'm not much at conversation, these days," he says finally, laying a piece of truth on the table. "Had the skill but never the habit, and less a reason to practice it. Or someone to practice it with."

Dominic cocks his head, the wicked grin weaving into something slightly puzzled, and a bit more complex. "You seem deft enough at it, just now. Though it's true I don't recall much talk from you at the table."

Billy smirks a little in agreement. "Well, we all like to play our strengths," he murmurs; the implied paradox hangs lightly for a moment. "What are yours?

Domininc's breath hitches for a moment, because Billy's voice is utterly wicked, the low drawl thick like treacle. He bets Billy tastes like treacle, too, all burnt sweet and sulphured.

"I like to help people," he says, tipping back the last mouthful of whiskey. "People tell me what they need, and I get it for them." He lets his mouth stretch into something wolfish, and he takes Billy's glass again, letting their fingers brush each other. Careful, Dommie. "I'm more of a right-hand man, I guess you could say."

He thinks of Julien, Julien's dark curls that smell of dust and leather and horse sometimes, and something sweet, like golden syrup, he always thought.

Like a girl. Arse over teakettle over Julien, he is. He blinks and focuses on Billy. There's something there, something like what he saw on Julien's that first night, that something that made him get close.

And if Julien were here--

But he's not. Is he.

Billy is still quiet, looking at him, unblinking.

"So what can I get you, then?"

Dominic's tone is light enough, but the offer is miles from indirect. Billy finds himself smiling a little, and allows it, allows the alcohol to slightly soften edges that habit has long since calcified into fact. There's little to lose, here and now, well apart from a crowd who, based on the roars of laughter coming from the front parlor and ... other noises from overhead, are rapidly moving toward soaked, as well as otherwise occupied. And though he's wound caution through him as deeply as bone, he finds himself set with the utter conviction that he has nothing whatsoever to fear from this man.

He reaches for the whiskey bottle and pours Dominic another amber shot, still smiling. "I think I have what I wanted, actually," he replies, and sets the bottle down without adding to his own half-empty glass. The younger man stares at him, a strange combination of pleasure and chagrin sweeping back and forth across his face. No poker player, indeed, and Billy wants to laugh, remembering what it was like to be in his early twenties, the eager rush of impatience that preceded every sexual encounter. It's that hurry, more that anything, that makes him revise Dominic's age a year or two downward, below what his features and confidence had suggested. Still young, this man, however experienced he is that this, younger yet than ... still young.

Raising the glass and setting it's cool edge against his lips, he takes a small sip and swirls the alcohol over his tongue for several seconds before letting it slide smoothly down his throat. He's far from drunk, not even approaching tipsy yet, but the night's only just past early, and as it's been years since he's felt this relaxed, he wants to take his time.

Dominic's still watching him, half-ruffled, a little confused, and altogether attractive. Billy appraises him happily. "Where did you learn to play the piano, Dominic?"

The name tastes delicious on his tongue.

Billy has a lovely drawling accent, not really like the other American's round these parts, but not anything like his own. It's exotic in a way he hasn't heard in years, maybe for the mind guiding that tongue.

Dominic grins and rubs the back of his neck. Piano. Right.

"We travelled with the rodeo, when we moved from jolly old England." He lets his fingers play against the bar, his glass, up along Billy's forearm. "My da had these hands, huge, you know, but they could really _play_."

Up, up, along the inside of Billy's elbow, pressing against the big veins that pulsed under the thin skin, disappearing under the rolled, bright white sleeve. "I would play for the Chief and his daughter during the day." He looks up and Billy's green eyes are clear and bright and Dominic finds him saying things he hasn't thought about in so long. "At night, I taught the Chief's son to play. His hands..."

He smoothes his fingers down, over Billy's wrist, pressing a thumb into his palm, and laughs a little, sheepishly. "My tongue isn't normally so loose." He winks and Billy grins. "Sayin' a lot."

His throat's gone dry behind the grin, and his stone man's bone-deep contrariness pulls against the urge to swallow, moisten it with spit or liquor. Billy can't untangle how much of the reaction is due to the echoed pressure of rough/soft fingers still ghost-dancing up the skin of his inner arm, and how much of it is just the raw strangeness of watching someone lay a piece of himself open, in a public bar, no real thought to consequences. More intimate that offer or touch, and bordering between incredibly unsettling and really fucking hot. Distantly, he's aware that his grin has slipped; there's a shocked quirk lingering at the corners of his mouth, but mostly he's just staring. Billy's free hand drifts upward to his face, with only the vaguest kind of permission, and he runs his fingertips over his lips, feeling the curves in their shape, watching Dominic watch him do it.

"Strange, isn't it," he whispers, hand still resting lightly on his mouth, and he can actually see Dominic's pupils dilate as he watches Billy form the words. Their eyes lock, levity gone. His voice is hoarse. "How your most public talent just ... changes. When there's an audience of one."

They stare at each other for a long silent moment, and he knows he's looking at Dominic with years of unnamed, fiercely guarded memories layered in his gaze like smoke; there for anyone see. Dominic is doing the same. A shiver races over Billy's skin, and he lifts his glass to his mouth and drains the whiskey down, throat rippling. Dominic's hand clenches down on the edge of the bar.

Taking his time is suddenly far from his preferred option.

"I don't think anyone will mind," Billy says raggedly, "if we bring the bottle with us."

Dominic grins slowly, leaning in with the pretense of reading the label, elbow sliding in the small rings of spilt scotch marking the bar. "No one'll mind t'all," he says, and he looks at Billy closely, twisting his palm around the neck of the bottle. "A tenner and the bottle's yours for the night."

Billy's eyes narrow and crinkle on the edges, and Dominic's belly twists with anticipation and something a little darker, like he's jumping head first into deep water. "Eagle doens't seem like enough for the quality."

"Whiskey's made to be drunk," Dominic replies and heat blooms in his chest and between his legs at the muscle jerking in Billy's jaw. "And for a double-eagle, I can make you any drink you want."

There's no offer in God's dry lands capable of making Billy Boyd act without deliberation (a fact that's been proven, once before), but this is still enough to make him wish for the intemperance to just drag Dominic up onto the bar, lay him out and open and _take._ He reins the impulse in and lets the words ride between them, gaining form and detail. The pause only fuels the intensity in Dominic's face, and Billy thinks with fierce appreciation, _No, nothing indirect about this one at all._

"Done," he says, his patience with his own control finally running thin, and a flare of conquest deepens Dominic's grin. _Cocky bastard._ Just for that, he lets himself lean barely into the other man's space and feels him suck in a breath before Billy reverses the motion and slips off the far side of the stool. He slaps a half-dollar coin onto the bar and sends it sliding toward the barkeep (who grins knowingly and nods in thanks), and then pushes off and heads for the stairs without a backwards glance. Behind him, he hears Dominic mumble a laughing curse and jump down to follow. Billy mounts the stairs to the customer rooms with a measured stride, head swimming a little at the feel of Dominic's gaze boring into his back, and keeps his ears trained on the footsteps behind him.

His clients usually need to be persuaded, prodded. The ones who "aren't queer" even need some reassurance, promises from a rent boy that they won't be exposed, that no one will know.

Dominic doesn't mind. It's part of the territory, really.

But it is nice when you find the ones who don't care, the ones who publically look at Dominic like they want to devour him. The ones, like Billy, who look back at him at the top of the stairs, who even nod in passing to another bloke sidling out of the WC, and smile coldly lest he leer at what, for at least the night, is his.

Dominic doesn't need reassurance like his toffs. But he takes it where he can get it.

He grins at Billy as he slips by him, making sure to brush at thigh, ribs and ankle. He puts his hand on his door handle and tilts his head, letting his hair brush Billy's cheek as he murmurs into his ear, "will you step into my parlour?"

Skin humming, Billy turns his head so he's looking at Dominic from perhaps two inches away (and damned if their eyes aren't dead level) and just holds there for a beat before sliding through the open door. Not generally a thing he'll do, step through strange door first, but he makes an exception for the company and for the dance.

He eases sideways as soon as he's inside, both to clear the way and to keep a wall at his back as he takes the space in. (And if his right hand just brushes past the revolver, it's well out of Dominic's line-of-sight.) The room smells clean and looks lived in, with a working man's possessions still out in sight, drawers a little ajar. The window's faint light catches on the covers of the bed. Dominic shuts the door behind them.

"Light the lamp," Billy says. The air shifts as Dominic moves away; there's the soft scrape of a match, and then light flickers golden into the room.

"Is that better?" Dominic asks, and it is, he can see everything now, but Billy's already crossing the room to wrap his hand around the nape of Dominic's neck, and when he presses their mouths together, he leaves the question unanswerred.


End file.
